The Indian women’s football team will no doubt be putting their best foot forward in the AFC Women’s Asian Cup India 2022. From living in a bubble to mental training, coaches are leaving no stone unturned to ensure that the team is prepared to face any and all challenges that come their way, head-on.
The team has stayed together–away from their loved ones–for more than a year and this did affect them. Unable to take a break from the rigorous training did take a toll on them. This showed up in the way they made decisions on the pitch. To overcome this, they practised an activity where everyone anonymously wrote what they liked about each player and the compliments were then readout. The results were immediately visible and all the players felt reassured that they were all on this journey together and that everyone had each other’s back.
Dalima Chhibber, the fullback on the team is also a sports psychologist and was the mastermind behind this exercise. She was quoted saying, “Football is a sport where you need to make a decision in a fraction of a second. Otherwise, you’ve already lost it. You may be nervous, but you’ve got to be able to back your own abilities in your own mind. Otherwise, you’ve already lost before the starting whistle. That’s where sharpening the mind along with the body becomes so important.”