GAME DAY PART 1 - PRE-GAME

The best round of football for the year, Preliminary Final round is upon us and by jeez it should be a cracker so I thought I would gather some notes from my files in regards to the different aspects of game day.

This will be a 3 part series (Pre-Game today, In-Game tomorrow and Post- Game Saturday) mostly in short form just to provide you with some idea's that you can than run with.

GAME MODEL

• Reduces player uncertainty when they play and provides more time for creativity

DEFENSIVE CHECKLIST

• Isolate the player in possession from their teammates
• Guard their teammates in a way that terminates their role in the offense
• Dispossess/win the ball back

ATTACKING CHECKLIST

• There is no such thing as reaction or defense as you’re either attacking with the ball or attacking the team in possession of the ball, to get it back.
• The defense must get into, and stay, in attack mode until it has possession, by applying sustained pressure so that the opposition become reactive rather than proactive.
• In doing so you have the chance to force a turnover.

PRE-GAME PLAYER NARRATIVE

• I’m going to take charge of myself
• I'm going to be the best individual and teammate I can be
• Nothing will take me away from my best mindset
• I can’t force a great performance
• I will have my best game possible

LEADERS

• You have to affect someone else on the team causing them to play better by the way that you play

PRE-GAME PHONE USE

• Causes mental fatigue especially if used 30mins pre-game
• 1 study showed that within 3 different groups (video watchers, video gamers and social media watchers) they all made the same amount of passes but the quality of passing decision making decreased in the social media and video games groups
• Social media/video gamers leads to a prolonged period of electrical impulses in certain areas of the brain, reducing the speed of information processing and thus leading to less successful decision making accuracy
• When mentally fatigued, players usually demonstrate longer fixation time on opponents and shorter fixation time on their teammates and they may not adequately interpret (sports perception) or anticipate (frontal cortex) opponents actions affecting their decision making accuracy