Football

Football is a team sport. It is played by two teams, eleven players to a side, who advance an oval ball over a rectangular field that is 120 yards long by 50 yards wide and has goalposts at both ends. American football evolved from early forms of rugby. Football is the most popular sport in the United States today, and the National Football League (NFL) is its most popular league. The league's championship, the Super Bowl, is among the most-watched club sporting events in the world.

The basic format of the game involves two teams, one of which is in possession of the ball. The team in possession of the ball, termed the offense, tries to advance the ball towards the end zone, the scoring area at either end of the field. The other team, termed the defense, tries to stop the offense and prevent them from advancing the ball. A game begins with a kickoff; the kicking and receiving teams are determined by a pre-game coin toss. The kickoff occurs as a player on the kicking team kicks the ball from a tee. The receiving team then catches the ball and runs towards the opposing end zone until they are tackled or step out of bounds, at which point the ball is considered dead. The point where the ball becomes dead is defined as the first line of scrimmage, and play begins from that point. Advancement of the ball occurs as a series of up to four discrete plays or downs. Teams can score points in several ways in football; a touchdown, worth six points, is the primary means of scoring. It occurs when the offense advances the ball into the defense's end zone or when the defense takes control of the ball and, on the same play, advances the ball into the offense's end zone. Following a touchdown, the scoring team attempts to score either one or two points by kicking or advancing the ball into the end zone, known as the extra point and two-point conversion. The team that has scored the most points by the end of the game wins.

Apart of psychology of football is having mental toughness and having a strong football mind. Mental toughness is a learned skill that is a necessity for athletes to master. A lot of athletes are what people like to call clutch. Meaning they can still perform great under a lot of pressure, adversity, or when most needed. That’s a psychological factor of the game of football. Psychologically athletes crack under pressure and cannot perform, one reason being because they are not mentally tough, not because lack of talent. You must be able to have excellent self-control, including attitude and emotional control as well as visual and attention control. Some athletes lose focus during the game when they need to keep their attention on the field or lose their cool emotionally on the field. For a very physically demanding sport that is visually intense and often emotionally charged, athletes need to set aside time daily as a part of their regular training regime to develop the psychological skill of mental toughness.

Coffey, D. (2012). Mental toughness - understanding football psychology. sports psychology for football. Retrieved from http://www.sportspsychologyfootball.com/mental-toughness-understanding-football-psychology/