Building Confidence and Skills at XVAcademy for Peak Performance

If we have to define the characteristics of the best player ever we would choose different parts of legendary players that had played the game and have been dominant in their times. Messi’s left foot, Pele’s right foot, Bale’s speed, Cruyff’s technique, Zidane’s touch, Cristiano Ronaldo’s shot, Ramos’ header, Gattuso’s strength, Bergkamp’s creativity, Maradona’s magic… are only a few examples of different players that have had exceptional characteristics and have been outstanding for that reason.

But even having the ability to do something much better than the rest of the players doesn’t guarantee to be the best or to do it at 100% every time, because there is something that can make you look worse and not be able to perform at your 100%: the confidence.

Confidence is, for me, one of the most important things when we want to do something, it doesn’t matter what. In football and in life, believe that we can do something it’s vital to actually do it. There is no worse enemy than ourselves thinking we are not able to do something.

That’s why in the XVAcademy we look after the confidence of our players as a pillar of our methodology. When we say that we want brave players, it’s because we want players that are not afraid of making mistakes, trying to make their comfort zone bigger to achieve always more complicated goals.

When the players see that they can actually do what they want and they don’t get punished after a mistake, their confidence in themselves grows and they become better players. Adding here all the individual technical concepts we work on all the sessions, it’s the perfect mix to give to the players this extra training that can let them perform in their clubs at their 100%.

We also try to work on the mentality to ensure that the players base their motivation in the things that they can control and not in the final result, as most of the times the result is conditioned by your performance and the opposition’s performance. If we perform at our 100% and we lose, we have to try to make this 100% bigger to be able to win the next time without any frustration because we tried our best.

Xavi