How do you react when you don’t have a good game?

We all have had those games in which things just didn’t go the way we wanted. The whole week you ate right, trained enough, got enough sleep and even got a good warm up before the match; and still you were not able to capitalize all that effort in the game. Perhaps the opponents had a good day, you missed the one winning opportunity of the game in a one on one with the goalkeeper, your passes were off, their attackers got past you easily, you had a bad touch that caused your team to get scored on, or whichever the reasons were you are just not satisfied with your performance.

You may ask yourself was all that effort worth it..?

John Wooden defined success as “…peace of mind, which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming.” Are you going to let external factors determine your success? Or are you going to measure success with things that you can actually take control of?

Think about your attitude during the game. Did you let your opponent get in your head with his trash talking? Did you surrender after making some mistakes? Or did you come back to defense after losing that ball? Did you scream at your teammates with frustration? Or instead you chose to cheer them up? Ask yourself all these kinds of questions and most likely you will find out that the effort was well worth it. If after being honest with yourself you think that you could have had a better attitude on the pitch, feel glad because you found an answer and can make a plan to improve. Set specific tasks to work on, write down what you are going to train for next week and you will improve.

If you think that you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming, then you can definitely say that you had a successful game regardless of the result, the mistakes you made and what people said. Soccer is a team sport, but you must also evaluate yourself when it comes down to it. Your teammates may judge your performance, but at the end of the day your teammates do not make decisions for you or have the power to control your movements.

World class players share something in common: self-awareness. Their opinions about themselves matter the most. All kind of ratings given by the coaches, press, fans, video games and  everybody else are secondary or of none importance to them. As a player you are the only one who truly knows everything about you. It kind of sounds obvious, but think about it. You are the only one who battles those internal fights. Remember every single training session; the fatigue that you have endured throughout your whole life, your victories and losses, those megs that you have suffered and enjoyed, those crossbars that have stopped your upper 90 shots, the goalkeepers that have stopped your celebration or the ones who saved your team, the time you pulled a Ronaldinho play, the “nice one” in the background after you made a good play, the one-twos, the injuries, those times that you lost  or won a game in the last minute; and most important, think about the good habits and restrictions that you have ever had while being a soccer player.

Always keep your head up, no matter how bad you think you performed. Be aware of your strengths and weaknesses and make a specific plan to improve them all. Be grateful for the opportunity of learning a new lesson. “Joga Bonito.”

Let us know how you deal with frustration in soccer in the comments below.