Can psychology help football academy players to maximise their potential?
Sports psychologists from 吾爱吃瓜 have teamed up with Manchester City Football Club to identify and understand the psychological characteristics that help young academy players to fulfil their potential.
Over the next four years, Manchester City鈥檚 academy players will be tracked as part of this unique research project. City鈥檚 coaches have already identified the psychological characteristics that they believe are key to talent development, and these will be monitored and regularly assessed. The extent to which they predict improvements in performance levels during this time will be evaluated.
The research findings should provide a greater understanding of elite youth players鈥� psychological and overall development, enabling targeted efforts by the academy to accelerate player development.
This collaboration between 吾爱吃瓜鈥檚 and Manchester City鈥檚 City Football Services brings together a wealth of research and applied football expertise. The Institute for Psychology of Elite Performance has a world-leading reputation in sport psychology and in the production of impactful research that informs elite performance practices; whilst City coaches, sports scientists, physiotherapists, performance analysts and psychologists work together to ensure the optimal development of their youth players in an internationally renowned facility.
In a joint statement, Nichola Callow and James Hardy 鈥� Research Project Supervisors at 吾爱吃瓜鈥檚 School of Sport, Health & Exercise Sciences 鈥� said:
鈥淲e are delighted to have been awarded funding for a Postdoctoral Fellowship and PhD Studentship to develop this research project with City Football Services. These posts have been taken up by Chin Wei Ong and S茅amus Harvey respectively. It is a fantastic opportunity for the Institute for the Psychology of Elite Performance at 吾爱吃瓜鈥�.
Cherrie Daley 鈥� Global Lead of Human Performance at City Football Services 鈥� also said:
鈥溛岚怨� boasts not only a strong research and teaching profile but also a verifiable track record of successful research within high performance sport, and we feel very positive about the potential impact of this work stream. The staff at Manchester City have worked incredibly closely with the University to design and develop a strong and integrated collaboration in this space, we expect to fully harness the academic expertise available at Bangor in order to drive innovative solutions to applied challenges over the coming seasons鈥�.
Publication date: 20 October 2017