How internal and external focus affets performance in youth elite football players

Abstract: The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of attentional focus on football performance. 20 junior elite football players participated in a repeated measure experiment where the effects of external focus and internal focus (compared to a control condition with no instructions regarding attentional focus) in a football related performance was investigated. The participants got to do an obstacle course three times, one with no instructions regarding focus of attention, one with internal focus and one with external focus. Significant effect of focus was found in two out of three dependent variables, passing points and cone touches, but no effect on time taken to finish the obstacle course. The participants got more points in passing and touched less cones in the obstacle course when having an external focus (with medium to strong effect sizes) compared to both internal focus and no instructions regarding focus. There were no differences in performance between internal focus and no instructions. The result in this study indicates that having external focus could enhance performance for junior elite football players, even though more research is needed on the subject for senior football players.