Chapter 7 of Soccer Tough introduces the reader to my favorite (and possibly, most successful) case study.

Carlton Cole kindly allowed me to talk a little about some of the work we did together that was a part of the process that helped him go from forgotten reserve team player to England International in just 18 months. It was an amazing turnaround by a player I found to be friendly, hungry and ambitious but whose confidence had gone a little awry in the tough world of professional soccer.

Carlton’s story is not unusual. An incredibly gifted player who came through the Academy at Chelsea, he found himself thrust into the limelight at the tender age of 18. Making his first team debut, Claudio Ranieri, the manager of Chelsea at the time, said “Carlton is my lion.” He believed Carlton was destined for great things. But over the next five years, Carlton’s progression halted and a after a string of failed loan moves, he was sold to West Ham. I was introduced to him in August 2007 when he was failing to make an impact at the east London club.

From day one, we set to work on his mindset. There were a host of things to work on. In Soccer Tough, I pinpoint one area in particular – an area that is pertinent for players and coaches the world over. Carlton’s confidence was low–he was suffering from an infestation of ANTs.

From Soccer Tough:

I told Carlton he had an infestation of ANTs. Not the small insects but Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTs).

It has been said that we have 66,000 thoughts a day and two thirds of these tend to be negative. How that has been measured I don’t know but I can imagine the figure is not far off. Carlton had a nest of ANTs. He had thousands of negative thoughts related to his soccer, every day. The previous few years had taken their toll and Carlton was teeming with ANTs that hampered his progress.

When Carlton sat with me he spoke about the ANTs he experienced on and off the pitch. He wasn’t helping himself by being worried during the week and spending time doubting himself. No matter how much talent you have, and no matter how physically fit you are, when you immerse yourself in the kind of destructive thinking that Carlton had, then you are going to play bad soccer. Carlton had an infestation of ANTs and he had to deal with them.

Do your players suffer from ANTs as they play? Do they tend to think about the mistakes they’ve made, the poor refereeing decisions, or the goal that’s gone in against? Do they tend to think about having a poor game as they run onto the pitch at the start of the match?

It’s likely they do.

Your brain is brilliant at focusing on problems as you play, such as refereeing decisions against you, a goal the opposition has scored, the fact you’re playing against a man mountain center back, the mistake you made 5 minutes ago, the vocal support of the opposition fans, and the telling off you got from the manager 10 minutes earlier.

Make a blunder in front of goal and the brain will do its best to bring your thoughts back to this moment time and time again. It will throw ANTs at you in the blink of an eye. It will build an ANTs nest in your mind as you constantly picture the mistake you made.

“I can’t believe I made that mistake. I’ve let my team mates down.”

The ANT can be the brain’s best friend (and worst enemy). Run onto a pitch at a venue where you’ve previously lost a couple of games and the brain will feed you an ANT.

An easy-to-apply technique I had Carlton doing was SPOT. STOP. SQUASH. He had to SPOT the ANT, STOP the ANT and shift the ANT.

Spotting the ANT is a skill in itself. Players can play blissfully unaware of their inner voice, their demons, their inner self-talk. It takes time and effort for them to recognise the ANTs that flow through their mind as they play. A key strategy (and simple one) is for coaches to ask players before a session to mentally take note of what they are thinking as they train. Players will probably be embarrassed to admit in public that they experienced ANTs but the simple exercise of asking them to notice their ANTs is enough to build their self-awareness.

STOPPING that inner voice is again a skill but simply done. A player should see a stop sign or say stop to herself. Easy!

SQUASHING (or shifting) goes neatly with my last article. I asked Carlton to shift back to the match script he wrote every single week. This helped him manage his mindset effectively. It helped him focus his mind and build the confidence he needed to perform.

Dan Abrahams is a sport psychology consultant who specializes in soccer. Abrahams joins the National Soccer Coaches Association of America to share his insights into soccer psychology. All thoughts and opinions in this regular feature are that of Dan Abrahams and not necessarily reflective of the NSCAA. You can find out more about his new book "Soccer Tough" at danabrahams.com.

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