Inside AF Global x Ahead For The Game: The Role of Mental Performance in Developing Elite Footballers

Time and time again, we’ve seen talented footballers fail to get used to the fame and realities of becoming a professional footballer. Football academies all around the world are always working to improve a player’s technical ability. But growth should never end at skill and technique.

A player’s mental resilience is just as important, if not more. In fact, according to a 2024 study by Johan Grønset et al., a player’s mental processes are important for performing. Moreover, the study found that a sports psychologist is important for developing a player’s mental skills.

A player’s mindset and the mental support they receive are just as important as the coaching they get from world-class coaches. That’s why Ahead For The Game and AF Global have partnered together to create a world-class mental performance programme that satisfies the needs of every player.

Introducing Ahead For The Game (AFTG)

As a footballer, working on your technical skills is a must. That much is obvious to just about anyone. However, another very important thing that players need to work on is their mental performance. As a player, you encounter highs and lows throughout your career. Being able to handle these situations effectively is imperative. 

Your mental resilience is a key factor in determining how well you perform on match days and in training. If a player is unhappy or unable to get their mind off of something, their performances will likely be affected. There are also those situations where emotions run high, and this can greatly affect how players perform. Such games will test the limits of a player’s mental fortitude. And we all know how one player’s inability to handle a situation properly can affect the entire team’s performance in games that matter. As a player, building your resilience and being able to handle such situations is important to ensure that you keep performing at the best of your abilities. 

However, we understand that this isn’t something that players are often taught about in football academies. Moreover, it certainly isn’t a topic that we expect players to learn about themselves. We’ve seen many incredibly talented footballers fail to reach their potential because they’ve been unable to handle the fame and the difficulties that come with it. We’ve also seen many stars go through terrible injuries which have taken a toll on their motivation and mindset

We are collaborating with AF Global to provide players with the support they need to develop on and off the pitch. Ahead For The Game works with footballing stars in order to develop their mental skills and get them ready to handle a range of situations that they might encounter. Our programme is led by practitioners who have BPS/CASES and HCPC qualifications and accreditation showing their expertise in sport psychology and athlete wellbeing. The support offered is designed specifically to complement each player’s strengths and to develop their weaknesses. 

Our practitioners first ensure that they understand players and the kind of environments that they are faced with. The programme is then designed specifically to deal with these needs. Through this approach, it’s ensured that the process is entirely collaborative and that players are always informed about what they will be doing in sessions. The idea is to ensure that players feel understood, to improve performances and general well-being through sessions designed based on existing research and evidence.

How AF Global Prepares Youth Stars For Their Professional Break

Youth stars enrolled in AF Global need to be challenged in order for them to truly grow. Moreover, as a footballer, players can’t just get away with improving their technical skills. They’ll also have to continue to grow as people in order to become the best versions of themselves.

That’s why AF Global acts as a specialised partner to accredited educational institutes, ensuring that future stars receive the best kind of footballing growth without compromising on academics. 

Rather than building campuses, AF Global partners with established schools and universities such as Beechwood School, Trinity School and the University Of Hertfordshire. These institutions focus on providing players with the full academic curriculum, whether it’s the GCSEs, A-Levels, IB, BTECs, or University degrees. 

While the player’s academics are handled by partner institutions, AF Global works on providing daily training and world-class coaching lessons through UEFA qualified football coaches. It is also the only elite football academy that’s integrated with independent boarding schools across the UK and Spain. This allows them to provide players with international exposure and experience through tours and high-level competition ensuring that players can test themselves in games that matter. By giving players the chance to play against professional clubs across the English Premier League and La Liga, they aim to offer stars the opportunity to be scouted by professional teams. Recently, they were also able to have their squads train under the world class management offered by teams such as Real Madrid and Atlético De Madrid.

As a football academy that aims to offer the best for our future stars, AF Global is always looking for ways to improve the training that players receive. And we believe that with our help, they would be able to create a well-rounded programme which ensures that their players' mental wellbeing and mental performance are always looked after.

What The AF Global x AFTG Mental Performance Programme Looks Like

In order to ensure that players receive the best kind of training and development, AF Global and AFTG are working together to create sessions tailored to each player’s needs. This is done through the following:

Workshops and 1-1 Sessions

For any new initiative to be effective, the first step is to always introduce players to the concept. In order to kickstart the mental performance programme, players will be attending scheduled workshops based on topics which include scanning & decision making, self-awareness and mental resilience. The objective of the workshops is to introduce topics to the athletes that will inform them of areas that they can then explore more through 1-1 sessions.

These workshops create the foundation from which 1-1 work can commence. This then allows our practitioners to understand players’ individual needs and deliver sessions that are aligned to these. These sessions could revolve around performance preparation, confidence or even focus. These can be delivered from the perspective of developing gaps in players’ mental performance, but the most successful work is seen when players’ strengths are enhanced.

We know that scheduled sessions are not always enough for players to be able to work on the things they would like to. That’s why our practitioners will always be available for players at AF Global’s facilities to drop by and have informal conversations. Through these informal sessions, players will be able to work on anything they want and practitioners will be able to check in on existing goals.

Development Beyond Football

As a football player, there are tons of situations that you’re never really prepared for. This can mean moving to a completely new place or being able to balance your academics and performances. Through the mental performance programme, AF Global and AFTG aim to help players deal with such issues and challenges. We believe that off-the-pitch support is just as important as focusing on what happens on the pitch because this can help build strong personalities and mindsets.

How AF Global And Ahead For The Game Will Work Together

As mentioned earlier, Ahead For The Game works to deliver personal sessions depending on the needs of each player. Through this collaboration with AF Global, we will receive all the necessary information we need to be able to design programmes for each player. AF Global’s qualified coaches have been working with players for a long time and they can act as points of contact, giving practitioners the data they need to do their job to the best of their abilities. 

Practitioners will work directly with AF Global staff in order to better understand players and that’s where most of the staff’s work ends. We believe that our work is just like a coach’s. The majority of the work needs to be taken care of by the practitioners because they are the most qualified to do so. Still, if need be, members of staff will always be ready to join in on sessions and collaborate on work to make them more effective.

The Bottom Line

Ahead For The Game’s new partnership with AF Global ensures that a player’s technical ability is not the only thing that’s developed in their journey of becoming a professional footballer. Through this enhanced mental performance programme, AF Global x AFTG aims to support players to become more self-aware and resilient, making them capable of handling all sorts of new experiences.

Using the skills of our professional practitioners, we aim to use this collaboration as a means to shape the next generation of footballing stars. To be a part of such unique programmes, register with AF Global.