Effect of a Counseling Program on Developing the Psychological Adaptation of Football Players

This study aims to create and implement a 16-session guidance program to develop the psychological adaptation in football players from the Southern Refineries Sports Club. The study divided participants into two groups of 10: an experimental group that underwent the guidance program at a frequency of two sessions weekly, and a control group that continued to train with their coach as usual. Initially, the experimental group's psychological adaptation scale had an average score of 149.20, with a standard deviation of 7.376. After the guidance program, their average score increased to 159.500, with a standard deviation of 8.343. This change yielded a statistically significant t value of 4.016 at a significance level of 0.003, indicating the effectiveness of the program. Conversely, the control group began with a pretest psychological adaptation average of 143.500 and a standard deviation of 6.819. They saw an insignificant change in the post-test average, which was 145.40 with a standard deviation of 8.395. The t value of 1.430 at a significance level of 0.187 demonstrated no significant improvement. The collected data suggest that the designed 16-session guidance program significantly contributes to the development of psychological adaptation in football players.