The Level of Football Players' possession of Psychological Skills in Jordanian Professional Clubs

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify the extent of football players, possession of psychological
skills in Jordanian professional clubs. Subjects were (249) football players representing. (12)
Professional clubs and were selected by the comprehensive inventory method. Descriptive data
was collected through the use of a questionnaire which includes the personal information (years
of playing, number and source of sport psychological courses attended, playing position, playing
in the national tham) and a questionnaire of psychological skills which includes (47) items distributed
on six dimensions (confronting anxiety, mental visualization ability, self-confidence, focus of attention,
team cohesion, and achievement motivation). To analyze the participants responses to the study
questionnaires, the researchers used, means,stud deviations ANOVA and Scheffe test.
The results showed a statistically significant relationship at the level of significance (α≤0.05) in the
skills of mental visualization ability, achievement motivation and self-confidence, and there were
statistically significant differences in favor of the players whose years of playing practices were longer:
(10-15) and (16 years and above), as the average values showed that the players whose years of practice
are longer are the more mentally visualizing, more focused and more cohesive players in the team. The
results indicated that these differences were between the players with the longest years of practice (16
years and above) and the players with less years of practice (less than 10 years) and (10-15 years), so
that the advantage of these differences is in favor of the players whose playing years are the longest (16
years and above), based on the arithmetic mean values related these skills, where the mean values
showed that the players whose years of practice are the longest are the least anxious when compared to
the players with the least years of practice. The researchers suggested a number of recommendations،
the most important of which is the Jordanian Football Association's adoption of a sports psychologist
within the training body of teams of juniors as well as of professionals in football.