A comparative study of sports mental toughness in soccer between under 19 and above 19 male soccer players from Goa.

Abstract: Sports psychology focuses on the mental and emotional aspects of athletic performance, helping soccer players enhance their performance by improving their focus and concentration, enhancing confidence, and managing stress and anxiety. The purpose of this study was to compare the mental toughness Under 19 and Above 19 years age were selected by using purposive sampling technique. For the present study sample of 140 ie.62 Under19 and 72 Above 19 years. The participants were selected from soccer academies and clubs of Goa. The tool used was Sports Mental Toughness Questionnaire (SMTQ) developed by Sheard, M., Golby, J., Van Wersch, A. (2009) to measure mental toughness of both under 19 and above 19 years age group. With the help of SPSS, the descriptive statistics the data was analysed the under 19 year player mean & standard deviation was 35.76( ±6.808). As the 19 years mean player mean & standard deviation was mean is 38.95 (±6.666). The data was compared using independent sample “t” test. The calculated t-valve for total mental toughness was 0.006, which shows that there is a significant difference between those under 19 and above 19 male soccer players from Goa.