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Mental Skills Toolkit:

How to Play with More Confidence in Soccer RIGHT NOW

Published: August 14, 2021
Updated: February 20, 2023
By: Jenn Ireland

Category: Confidence, Growth-Mindset, Performing under Pressure

Confidence in soccer. Something every soccer player wants more of right?

We all have that teammate or know a player that just BLEEDS confidence and we wonder how they got there, where they got it all from. We want to be right there with them, having what they have, playing with as much confidence in soccer as they are playing with. We want to know their secrets.

Well – there’s good news: it is ABSOLUTELY POSSIBLE to grow your confidence in soccer and become a more self-confident player on the pitch. It is something that is within your control. And here’s the even better news, if you REALLY invest and get committed to working on the things in this blog post, you can be playing with more confidence in soccer in a relatively short amount of time. Like even this upcoming weekend.

Growing your confidence in soccer WILL require you to put in a lot of work though – some of which might be out of your comfort zone. Just remember to keep telling yourself that it is OK though, because getting out of that comfort zone is the ONLY way to elevate your game. Ready? Let’s dive in.

Confidence in soccer Is a mentality you can build

Confidence in soccer is a mentality, one that YOU CAN CREATE FOR YOURSELF. Actually, one that you HAVE to create for yourself because nobody else is going to do it for you. Others can give you advice (such as this blog post I’m writing here), but the ball is ultimately in your court.

Every soccer player’s journey toward a more self-confident mentality will be unique, as we are all different people with different strengths and struggles. That being said, there are two main parts to gaining confidence in soccer that EVERY soccer player will benefit from: To grow your confidence in soccer, you need to #1 – properly prepare (both physically and mentally) and #2 – regulate your thoughts/feelings/emotions in the direction of the desired outcome (in this case, confidence in soccer).

Deciding to fully invest and work on both of these aspects of your soccer game will ultimately have many additional benefits to your game beyond building your confidence in soccer. Your self-efficacy, your self-integrity, and your self-worth will all get all get a nice bonus boost as well. Sounds pretty great right? I mean, who doesn’t want to feel this awesome?

Preparedness breeds confidence

In sport, in life, in soccer, pretty much EVERYWHERE- preparedness breeds confidence.

What does that mean, preparedness breeds confidence? It means do the work. It means put in the extra time. Fine tune your first touch. Practice placing that ball into the corner of the net. Do it over and over and over again. Get in the reps each and every week. And the next week after that.

Every extra touch you put on that ball, every extra minute you spend working on the small details of your game, will make you more prepared. The more physically prepared you are for something, the more you will trust in your ability to perform. And the more confidence in soccer you will have. Why? Because you will know that YOU CAN EXECUTE because YOU’VE DONE IT hundreds if not thousands of times before and are absolutely ready.

Putting in the time and doing the extra work will also result in you being more consistent in game play. Consistency makes you dependable and reliable both to your teammates and to yourself. So, physical preparation leads to preparedness, preparedness leads to consistency, consistency creates faith in your ability, and walla! – faith in your ability leads to CONFIDENCE IN SOCCER.

Prioritize time for mental preparation before matches

Physical preparation is key to growing confidence in soccer, but mental preparation is of equal importance. A good way to mentally prepare for soccer games is to develop a specific, personalized game-day routine that you can use before any performance to ready yourself, regardless of if you are playing a scrimmage or a state championship match.

Create a routine that puts you into a headspace where you can be at ease, get focused and stay fresh. For some soccer players this is listening to music, for others it is going on a long walk, getting in an extra stretch session or having a pre-game snack & hydration regimen. Your routine can be anything, but it should be unique to you – something that you like and feels right for you.

In order for this to work, and help you grow your confidence in soccer, you need to do this over and over and over again. Before every match if you can. Once you do it enough, your body will start to associate the routine with heading into a game – and the regularity of the comforting, familiar activity will be what helps keep you calm and composed, confident and focused.

Grow your confidence through preparedness.

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Self-Regulating your thoughts

Something that might not be thought about a lot when it comes to confidence in soccer is the power of self-talk. What you fill your head with before, during and after games has HUGE impact on your confidence in soccer. Start things off right. During your mental game-prep time make sure you are focusing on things that are good, useful and constructive – aka positive thinking and positive self-talk.

You want to make sure you are self-regulating your thoughts to achieve your desired outcome (which in this case is playing with more confidence in soccer). Self-talk is powerful, thoughts are powerful, words are powerful. Remember, “you are what you think“, and a negative, self-defeating mindset will only leave you in a negative, self-defeated place.

To build confidence in soccer and play more calmly under pressure, you must make it a point to leave behind detrimental, negative thinking, especially during the run of play. Detrimental thinking refers to damaging self-talk or any self-defeating mentality, basically any and all thoughts that are not GOOD, USEFUL or CONSTRUCTIVE to your game. Examples include overthinking, replaying mistakes, worrying about what others think, getting caught up on missed opportunities, etc.

Try visualization to gain confidence in soccer

Going back to preparedness, there are only so many PHYSICAL reps you can take before your body needs to rest, right? This is where visualization comes in, it can help you GET EXTRA REPS without wearing down your body.

A visualization example: taking corner kicks. First, do the extra work and put in the time to adequately prepare. Then add in visualization. Picture the upcoming scenario and then picture your corner kick from start to finish where everything goes as planned. Get detailed. Think about putting your hand up before the kick, picture finding your target, visualize exactly how your foot will strike the ball and how the goal will be finished. Do this over and over again and try to get more detailed with each and every mental rep.

Visualization is something you have complete control over. You can self-regulate and choose your thoughts to mentally prepare yourself for live game situations before even hitting the field.

Another great reason to use visualization is that it can help keep those detrimental, negative thoughts at bay. Here’s a great quote from pro player Michael Lewis Cunningham of 7mlc soccer:

"Visualization is a real game changer. Sometimes, even when we are feeling calm, and we've done all the necessary preparation, we still let negative thoughts creep into our minds. If this happens, it's your responsibility to fight against them with positive thoughts. If you start imagining failures on the pitch, instantly start thinking in great detail about some of your most successful moments on the pitch. Really focus on this, close your eyes if you have to, to block of distractions. Think of how that felt, think of the buzz you got when you scored that goal, how it felt when the ball struck cleanly off your foot and almost broke the net, replay it over and over again. Your mind can't differentiate between imagination, and reality, so by replaying these moments, your mind thinks they are actually happening and you build confidence."

Michael Lewis Cunningham, 7mlc

Playing with confidence in soccer

To recap, here are the steps you can take right now to start setting yourself up to play with more confidence in soccer:

1 – Physically prepare with fitness & time on the ball

2 – Mentally prepare for games with a pre-game routine

3 – Only allow good, useful and constructive thinking

4 – Use visualization to get extra, mental reps

If you take action and hold yourself accountable to working on your preparation and regulating your thoughts & self-talk, YOU WILL QUICKLY find yourself playing with more confidence in soccer. As an added bonus, you will also find that you’ve grown your personal integrity and self-efficacy skills.

When you spend time working on things for yourself, you start to trust yourself more because you are following through on something you told yourself you would do. When you take responsibility for your development, you grow your faith in yourself because you are standing up for yourself. And as you grow your self-integrity, YOU GROW YOUR CONFIDENCE in soccer.

You are an amazing, strong young women. You HAVE THE POWER to do this, to grow your confidence in soccer. It requires hard work, but you can do it. And along the way you’ll gain more skills than just confidence. In learning to shift your mentality, you’ll start reframing limiting beliefs that have held you back. You’ll start uncovering your own authentic drive and passion for the game.

Growing your confidence in soccer will elevate EVERY PIECE OF YOUR GAME, maximizing your potential in ways you never thought possible. Get excited, you’re about to experience your own greatness.

Hi everyone! I’m Jenn and I create content to help female soccer players and coaches maximize individual and team potential by developing healthy mindset skills. Join other subscribers and sign up for the newsletter for all my best tips and advice!

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Hi everyone!

I'm Jenn, a USSF C-licensed youth soccer coach, mental skills coach & founder here at Expand Your Game. I created this site because it is the site I needed when I was a soccer player.

About me: I am a former newspaper photojournalist who loves downtempo electronic music, guacamole and books of every sort. And of course soccer! On days off you can find me researching tiny farms in Portugal , tossing a frisbee for my dog, or tending to my growing collection of indoor plants.