Exploring mental toughness in young local footballers : a qualitative study

Abstract

Many researchers have argued that mental toughness is developed through experience, through dealing with challenge and through having support from significant others. It has also been described as being a multidimensional construct, with researchers arguing that it is made up of various different attributes or characteristics. This research was designed to explore whether young local footballers have any knowledge of mental toughness and what they think are the characteristics of such a skill. It also attempts to examine the phenomenon of mental toughness from the perspective of minors, and amateur student footballers and also attempts to come up with a prospective definition of what young Maltese footballers perceive mental toughness to be. The participants were all U/16 male Maltese national team players and semi-structured interviews were used to collect the data. It was discovered that most young footballers do have knowledge of what mental toughness is and what are its attributes, however it was noticed that this knowledge has potential to be enhanced and more should be done to make the footballers more aware of its strengths. From the results obtained it was noted that coping with stress was considered to be one of the leading characteristics of mental toughness, with motivation too being highly considered. Hardiness and success are also characteristics participants related to, however with regards to success, participants believed that it is in failure that one has to show how strong he is mentally. A novel attribute which came out in the study was leadership. Although not much research connected leadership with mental toughness, the participants of this study considered leadership to be a very important characteristic for a mentally tough footballer.