Half-time

Half-time is a crucial part in any game where you and your teammates review how you played in the first half. The good half-time talk is an always a big contribute to how well you play in the second half. Dan Abraham states in Soccer Tough that half-time talks should include memory and imagination.

During these team talk it is important to remember the good moments in the first half and when your team played it's best. Thinking this way will help you to have more of those good moments. You also should review the mistakes and bad moments that your team had in the first half. You should do this so you can learn from your mistakes and improve off of them. "This doesn't mean I want you to ignore your weaknesses. Excellence requires a long look at what you don't do well enough on the soccer pitch" (Abrahams 58). Abrahams suggests to review your mistakes and to be excited about improving them in the second half (58). Lately during my half-time talks with my team we have been reviewing both the good and the bad. Doing this has helped us improve where we are weakest and continue to do what we did well before. 

Abrahams in this chapter also talks about having imagination in a team talk. "Champions are champions because they envision success. They use their imagination to shape their future- short term and long term" (58). I agree with his statement because I tried this out last weekend. Our team was down 0-2 at the half and it was half-time. Our talk that we had was good and we all believed that we could come back and win. With that self-belief that we all had, we were able to come back and win 3-2. Positive imagination produces good results.

Have you ever had a good half-time talk that helped your team?

Abrahams, Dan. Soccer Tough: Simple Football Psychology Techniques to Improve 
     Your Game. Birmingham: Bennion Kearny Limited, 2012. Print.