Player Motivation

You'll no doubt have noticed that players feel responsible for mistakes they feel they have made during a game, particularly when it results in conceding a goal.

I was wondering if it's possible to tell your players that it wasn't their fault or that you don't blame them for it.

I had a match today where the commentator blamed borrowdale for me conceding a goal, and he felt responsible. Yet when I looked back at the replay, I noticed that even after his mistake we'd gained and lost possession two times over, and the resultant goal actually came from a completely needless pass by cowie across my own penalty area to the feet of dean ashton. Ok so borrowdale had given away possession that led to the attack, but that attack was completely over and cowie was in acres of space with options.

so anyway, is there a way of reassuring players in this situation?

For myself, if the mistake was made in the first half, I would use the individual "pressure is off" team-talk option on him going into half-time. Hopefully this will allow him to not feel so encumbered by his earlier 'mistake'.

If the mistake was made during the second half and after some time, he still does not show signs of shaking away his gloom, I feel the best option for the player, as well as the team, is to take him off.

If you have used up all your substitutions, nothing left to do but pray.

Maybe after the game praise him n the media for playing well but it all depends on his personality

Maybe after the game praise him n the media for playing well but it all depends on his personality

If the player ends the match with a low (sub 6) rating, praising him is generally not a good idea. It might lead to either the player feeling incredulous at you praising him for a poor performance and subsequently losing his respect for you, or he might get complacent and be misled into thinking that all he needs for your acknowledgment is half-hearted effort.

What I would normally do after a player ends a match on a poor note and suffers a severe dip in morale (below ok), is criticise his form (severity depending on his personality as well as just how bad his recent form is) or just give him a rest and exclude him from matches where you can expect your team to have to dig deep in to get a result. Bring him on in games where victory is almost nearly guaranteed (this includes reserves games) and carefully nurture his morale back up towards superb.

Re: getting his morale back up, isn't this exactly the sort of situation "I have faith in your ability" individual team-talk is for?

I do like the OP's idea, though, a team-talk telling the player "That goal wasn't your fault" would be nice. In fact, the half-time individual team-talk could have several options:

- Angry at the mistake

- Disappointed

- I have faith in you, lad

- Shake it off, lad, there's still the second half to play

- Go get redemption in the second half

- Don't beat yourself up; we're still in this / we still have the lead

- I don't think that goal was your fault.

- No pressure.

Agreed, i thnk the team talk options at the moment are very limited. I also think its a fine line between too many and too few comments.

Right - but culling contextually feels like it often leaves me with things that I want to say, think are reasonable given the situation, but can't say because the UI doesn't present them to me.