The personality of a soccer player according to his position on the field

The king of all games is without a doubt, football.

It is a practice so humane and significant in our time as few sociological phenomena can be, since it encompasses the different fields of human nature and is capable of summoning the globality of the human being in its different levels of consciousness and expression. Its practice knows no borders since it is practiced on the five continents making the whole world revolve around the ball.

Soccer: a social… and psychological phenomenon

Both the success and the failure of a player come from a combination of physical, psychological and technical conditional abilities.. For this reason and due to the global relevance of this sport, it is necessary to study these factors that affect the athlete's performance, positioning the study of the personality of the soccer player as one of the most determining factors for sporting success, being very useful since it is of a territory in which behaviors will depend more on the personality traits of the players than on their around.

The personality of the footballers

The knowledge of the personality of the soccer player, according to the position that he plays, could help to improve the performance of the player. team in general, and the player could be selected for each specific position taking into account not only his physical abilities but also also their Personality traits that will allow a given player to function better in one position and not another.

Defining concepts

But to be able to talk about personality in sport and in football in particular, it is necessary to make a description in general lines of what is this construct that we call personality.

What is personality?

• Personality is a hypothetical construct, inferred from the observation of the behavior, not being an entity in itself that does not imply value connotations on the characterized person.

• Personality includes a number of elements (traits or internal dispositions), more or less stable over time, that make a person's behavior be consistent on different occasions and different from the behavior that other people would show in situations comparable. These stable and consistent personality characteristics allow us to predict the behavior of individuals.

• Personality also includes other elements (cognitions, motivations, affective states) that influence the determination of behavior and that can explain its lack of consistency and stability in certain circumstances.

• The behavior will be the result of both the most stable elements (whether psychological or biological) and the aspects determined more by personal influences (perception of the situation, previous experiences), social or cultural. These individual and general traits arise from a complicated combination of determinants both biological and the product of learning, and ultimately comprise an individual's idiosyncratic pattern of perceiving, feeling, thinking, coping, and behaving (Millon, 1990).

Position in the field (demarcation) and personality: is there a correlation?

One of the fundamental characteristics of this sport is that each player plays a tactical position within the field of play, in which four main categories are identified: goalkeepers, whose function is to prevent goals from being scored; the forwards, to score goals; the defenses to defend the danger zone and the midfielders who are the ones who strategically handle the ball in the center of the field, generating plays aimed at scoring goals.

These four categories They are also characterized by having their certain personality styles according to a series of stable response dispositions that are the traits and that are defined as the global tendencies that each particular player has to issue one or another kind of response that determines his behavior and his thoughts characteristic. That is, each player, depending on his personality traits, would be predisposed to respond in the same or similar way to different types of stimuli.

For this reason, the concern arises not only to know the general profile of the soccer player, but also the individual differences in terms of personality according to the position that each player plays within the playing field, since this would help the coach to find the best position for him within of the field; take into account the frustration tolerance of their scorers, the goalkeeper's resistance to the pressure of penalties, aggressiveness of defenders and emotional stability to see how they influence each other within the same team, etc.

General personality traits of a soccer player

There are individual differences where sports practice is related to a certain number of personality traits, especially traits such as extraversion, emotional stability and responsibility, these being the traits most associated with sports such as soccer, although not the only ones, as we will see in continuation.

• extraversion, which refers to an active, optimistic, impulsive subject capable of easily establishing social contacts.

• Emotional stability, which refers to a serene and carefree individual.

• Responsibility, which indicates a tendency to be orderly and achievement-oriented.

Therefore, soccer players at a general level are balanced, extroverted, emotionally stable, dominant, aggressive, competitive and ambitious. They are oriented towards achievement and team cohesion, active and with few depressive manifestations (Pascual, 1989).

Different investigations also show that the soccer player presents these traits: Affability, Abstraction, Dominance, Animation, Attention to rules, Daring, Sensitivity, Vigilance, Apprehension, Openness to change, perfectionism and tenacity. (Guillen-Garcia, 2007).

More attributes and traits of soccer players

Soccer players also have defensive and adaptive strategies in behavioral terms, which defines them as players who characterized by a great ability to perceive situations favorably and with a high attention span, according to Apitzsch (1994).

The image they give to others is of highly narcissistic and egocentric people (Elman & McKelvie, 2003).

They have high scores on the factors of radicalism, intelligence And control. (O'Connor and Webb, 1976)

Soccer players present themselves as self-sufficient since they tend to seek to build their own future and that this just depend on them, individualists and supportive, as well as tense, energetic, impatient, restless and reagents. (Marrero, Martin-Albo and Núñez, 2000).

Soccer players define themselves as self-actualized people, with confidence and self-assurance, they seek satisfaction of their own goals, optimistic, with good humor, friendly socially and have a spirit humanitarian. (Bara, Scipiao and Guillen, 2004).

Soccer players in general belong to the Conformism scale, which indicates that they conform to authority, respect it and abide by its rules. (García-Naveira, 2008; Aparicio and Sánchez-López, 2000).

Soccer players in general are dominant, manipulative, aggressive, competitive and ambitious subjects in their social relationships (Apitzsch, 1994; Garcia, 2004 and Garcia-Naveira, 2008).

These players move and act against individual interests such as the motivation to improve a personal skill, to be recognized as the best in their position, to be a starter, among others; and group motivations such as winning a cup or championship (Díaz-Morales and García-Naveira, 2001). They are demanding of themselves and bright, and they keep their self-esteem high so that the environment comforts them.

This indicates that soccer players tend to meet their own needs but taking others into account to make decisions about group goals.

Although soccer players, being group athletes, are more dependent on their own teammates, need to turn to others for external stimulation, constant search for attention from other team members, have confidence towards the other, self-control and social responsibility at a higher level than the individual athletes Bara et to the. (2004).

As we have seen, soccer players have a characteristic personality style, but differences are also established according to the location and the role they play. fulfill each player on the playing field (Goalkeeper, Defender, Midfielder and Forward) according to the tactical position they play within the team (Millon 2001).

Differences in the personality of soccer players according to the position they occupy on the pitch

1. goalkeepers

They are characterized by their intuition and because their knowledge derives from the concrete, relying more on direct or observable experience than in the players occupying the other positions.

They are players who are very confident in themselves, they believe they are talented, competent and very self-centered.

the goalkeepers are the most risk-taking gamblers and are highly dissatisfied with predictable situations.

They are very creative, talkative, dominant and aggressive and are always in constant search of stimulation and attention. They are friendly and bright but also demanding and prefer to satisfy their personal needs before those of others.

2. Midfielders

They are characterized because they are reflective, they tend to process knowledge to a greater extent through logic and analytics and they are able to make decisions based on their judgment and their direct and observable experience (intuition). (García Narváez, 2010).

They are the most likeable of the team (concordance) and those who establish the strongest emotional bonds with the other players and tend to hide their negative feelings.

They are intuitive, they look for the abstract and the speculative and they make decisions based on their own affective reactions and guided by their personal values.

3. defenses

They are characterized by being the most intuitive players. They are self-confident and very competent and talented.

They are players who seek their stimulation from others and are motivated to first satisfy the needs of others and not their own.

They are located on the scale of submission, which indicates that relate submissively to others and conform to the norms held by others.

4. strikers

They are characterized by being the most systematic players. They are predictable, organized, perfectionist and efficient, capable of adapting new knowledge to existing ones, thus looking for safe ways that give results of generating productive plays and sticking to them without straying too far from that pattern checked. (Perez. M, Navarro. R, Navarro. R, Ruiz. J, Brito. Uh, Navarro. m. 2004).

They are receptive dominant and socially aggressive, ambitious and stubborn (control polarity). These are the players who act more independently and less conformist with what is predictable, in addition to not abiding by common or traditional rules, assuming the risks (discrepancy).

Although they are socially likable and establish good bonds with other players and strong loyalties, they are the least motivated to satisfy the demands of others first.

They lean towards the Affective scale, which describes them as players who make decisions based on their own affective reactions and guided by their personal values.

In conclusion

For all the above, an integrating model is necessary that takes into account stable variables over time. such as personality traits or styles and other more changing variables such as goals, motivations and styles cognitive.

Bibliographic references:

• Apitzsch, E. (1994). The personality of the elite soccer player. Journal of Sports Psychology, 6, 89-98.
• Garcia-Naveira, A. (2004). Individual differences in soccer players over time: Personality style and motivation. Degree memory. Department of Differential Psychology. Faculty of Psychology. Complutense University of Madrid.
• Garcia-Naveira, A. (2007). Study of personality in athletes from the models of Cattell, Eysenk and Costa and McCrae. Sport Psychology Notebooks, 8(2), 43-51.
• Garcia-Naveira, A. (2008). Personality style in competitive soccer players and differences depending on the demarcation. Sport Psychology Notebooks, 8 (2), 19-38.
• Garcia-Naveira, A. (2010a). Individual differences in personality styles and performance in athletes. Report to qualify for the degree of doctor. Department of Personality, Evaluation and Psychological Treatments II. Faculty of Psychology. Complutense University of Madrid.
• Million, T. (2001). Million Personality Styles Inventory. Madrid: TEA Editions.