Players’ individual characteristics affecting football team cohesion

Abstract

The aim is to identify the individual characteristics affecting the development of team cohesion and, by taking them into account, to improve the team cohesion through special training sessions. Material: determined cohesion of the football team and individual characteristics of each team member, which affect the cohesion of the team. We tested a total of 38 male teenagers, who all study together at Ivan Piddubny Olympic College (Kyiv) and play football in their specialty. The boys aged 14-16 are currently the members of one team, and will become professional footballers in the future. They had sports training together. The teenagers are divided into teams, the players are constantly changed by the coach to achieve the best results and to analyze the game of the wards in different roles (defender, striker, goalkeeper, etc.). There are many significant correlations between a person’s proneness to conflicts and his subjective assessment of team cohesion. Manifestations of aggression and hostility of some players to their team colleagues negatively affects the team cohesion. It is possible to accelerate football team uniting and, as a result, to improve the team sports results through the psychological training and the team psychologist’s individual work with each player.