Team resilience in high-performance women’s football: Contextual stressors and opportunities for development

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to conduct a pre-intervention team resilience needs assessment in the context of high-performance women’s football. The needs assessment included a review of the literature, focus group discussions, and input from an expert steering group. Following scoping meetings with senior personnel from the National Governing Body, teams in the top two tiers of a professional women’s football league and within the academy structure were contacted. Five focus groups made up of football players were conducted. Altogether, 27 participants (Mage = 23.96, SD = 4.49) took part. The focus groups were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis from a critical realist standpoint. The study identified the contextual stressors that high-performance women’s football teams encounter (i.e., organizational stressors arising from a newly professionalized environment and on-pitch stressors arising from low social resources), effective team resilience practices currently employed by group members (i.e., establishing a strong foundation for high quality relationships; unity in managing pressure; and learning from setbacks to inform future preparation for adversity) and the perceived gaps for team resilience development (i.e., limited effectiveness and inconsistent use of deliberate pressure training; inadequate psycho-social resources; and lack of effective proactive group level strategies during pressure). The study highlighted the importance of a systematic needs assessment within an Intervention Mapping Framework prior to undertaking an intervention as several nuances to the specific context of high-performance women’s football were identified.

Lay Summary

With the intention of creating a context specific team resilience intervention, we sought the opinions of women’s football academies and professional teams, stakeholders, and practitioners as part of a needs assessment. The study identified the specific stressors they face, effective team resilience practices and some gaps for intervention development.

IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE

• Due to the high turnover of staff and players in this context, a continuous emphasis should be placed on the integration of new players to align with team values.

• Player leadership groups should be established based on empirical evidence/guidance and team members should be given specific leadership skills training.

• Sport psychology practitioners and coaches need to have greater collaboration amongst themselves so that workshop based off-pitch knowledge can be deepened through on-pitch simulation trainings.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author [ASZ]. The data are not publicly available due to their containing information that could compromise the anonymity of research participants.