{"id":33379,"date":"2026-02-03T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/?post_type=article&p=33379"},"modified":"2026-02-22T10:56:53","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T10:56:53","slug":"how-do-you-track-resilience-in-academy-football-players","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/how-do-you-track-resilience-in-academy-football-players\/","title":{"rendered":"How Do you Track Resilience in Academy Football Players?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n\t
\n\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\n\t\t\t\t
\n \n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

\n 3 Feb 2026 <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>Articles<\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

How Do you Track Resilience in Academy Football Players?<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n \n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/div>\n Open Access<\/a> <\/div>\n
\n
Share<\/div>\n Facebook<\/a>\n Twitter<\/a>\n Email<\/a>\n Copy Link<\/a>\n
https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/how-do-you-track-resilience-in-academy-football-players\/<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

Ben Ashdown and Mustafa Sarkar of Nottingham Trent University are working on a research programme aimed at providing an evidence-informed and objective approach to tracking resilience on the pitch.<\/p>\n \n \n \n

\n

Main Image: Thomas Eisenhuth\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

By John Portch<\/h6>\n
Football academies tend to prize resilience, but few can agree on a definition.<\/h6>\n

\u201cEven within the same football academy we\u2019ve seen staff have different views of what resilience is,\u201d Ben Ashdown<\/a>, a Senior Lecturer in Sport and Exercise Psychology and Lead Researcher at Nottingham Trent University, tells the Leaders Performance Institute on Teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ll say \u2018resilience is a really important part of our philosophy but actually we don\u2019t really know what it is, we don\u2019t really know how to measure or assess it, we don\u2019t really know how to track it\u2019,\u201d says Dr Mustafa Sarkar<\/a>, who also joins the call. He is an Associate Professor of Sport and Performance Psychology at Nottingham Trent and Lead Supervisor of the research programme.<\/p>\n

Together, alongside Dr Chris Saward, Dr Nathan Cobb, and Dr Julie Johnston at Nottingham Trent University, they are leading a research programme to identify behavioural indicators of resilience in English academy football and develop a resilience behaviours observational tool. As part of the research, they have worked with academy stakeholders including coaches, psychologists, scouts, and analysts. They are also conducting a season-long study at a Category One academy (Derby County Football Club).<\/p>\n

Based on their research, they have found that resilience behaviours can be categorised under six themes:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

At the end of this research programme, they hope to have developed a tool for sport psychologists and coaches primarily, with some benefit to analysts who might contribute to the tracking of these behaviours through video-based analysis.<\/p>\n

Sarkar says: \u201cWe don\u2019t necessarily see it as a tool for identifying talent. I think it would be more as a conversation-starter with a player for player development purposes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Resilience: a behavioural response<\/strong><\/p>\n

As the exploration, measurement, and assessment of resilience in sport has tended to rely on self-report alone, myths and misconceptions have emerged (such as resilience being related to endurance and the suppression of emotion), and there is a gap between what resilience truly entails and what practitioners witness on the pitch.<\/p>\n

\u201cCoaches and support staff are starting to recognise that both physical and mental rest are critical to sustained resilience over time,\u201d says Sarkar who has spent time with academy stakeholders dispelling those myths and misconceptions<\/a>. \u201cPart of resilience is about helping individuals to develop their thought and emotional awareness. It is not about encouraging people to hide their emotions\u201d.<\/p>\n

Additionally, \u201cresilience requires more nuanced (context-specific) language because a person\u2019s resilience in relation to being injured might be quite different to their resilience in relation to a loss of form\u201d.<\/p>\n

The behavioural elements of resilience lay at the heart of their research programme.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see resilience as a behavioural response,\u201d says Ashdown, \u201cbut, up till now, there hasn\u2019t been any literature that has actually asked what do these behaviours \u2018look like\u2019? How do we observe them? I think our work, in a behavioural sense, gives us some directly observable, reliable and valid indicators of resilience in football.\u201d<\/p>\n

The appeal for coaches, psychologists, and analysts is clear. \u201cThey\u2019ve really bought into this idea that we\u2019ve got something to look for on the pitch, and if we can see it [resilience], then maybe we can then develop it and track it over time,\u201d Ashdown continues.<\/p>\n

Their initial 2025 study\/paper<\/a> identified 36 behaviours (across six themes mentioned above), which have since been refined to ten. \u201cWe retained at least one across the six themes, which is another indicator that they\u2019re pretty reliable.\u201d<\/p>\n

These behaviours include: demonstrating supportive actions during pressure or adversity (support-focused behaviour); positive body language in response to stressors (emotion-focused behaviours); and regaining focus in the face of challenges (robust resilience behaviours).<\/p>\n

How might coaches approach these behavioural themes in their resilience development work?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Leaders Performance Institute asks Ashdown and Sarkar about each of the six themes and they give consideration to each in turn with the caveats that a) they should be viewed collectively in order to develop a holistic view of an athlete; and b) the data collection and analysis of their research programme remains ongoing.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Teammate support-focused resilience behaviours<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    When players support or encourage teammates in stressful moments, especially after mistakes.<\/em><\/p>\n

    Ashdown admits that the relational aspects of resilience are more significant than he initially thought. \u201cAt times I probably assumed resilience was an individual capacity that you developed almost by yourself without realising that social support (through your teammates) is really significant,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

    \u201cThrough the work of Ben and others we\u2019re starting to find that resilience is very much relational,\u201d says Sarkar. \u201cThe development of resilience is dependent on cultivating high quality relationships. The interesting bit about social support is that we\u2019ve found that it\u2019s not necessarily about getting social support, but it\u2019s about the perception that that support is available to you. From a resilience perspective, the perception is more important than receiving the actual support itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Ashdown then shares a story of academy training drills, at Derby County FC (work led by academy sport psychologist, Lyle Kirkham, and supported by Ashdown), where players had a \u201csecret support partner\u201d. \u201cWe tasked some players with, right, when your teammate experiences some adversity or stressor or when they\u2019re under pressure, find ways of offering them support,\u201d he says, adding that the process raised the players\u2019 awareness of how they\u2019re reacting, responding and interacting with their teammates.<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Emotion-focused behaviours<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      When players attempt to regulate their own emotions when encountering pressure, errors or frustration.<\/em><\/p>\n

      While there isn\u2019t yet the data to support a definitive conclusion that emotion-focused behaviours depend on age and phase, as Ashdown explains, \u201cthere\u2019s so many points where the participants said \u2018we would expect to see a different response from a 10-year-old than one of our under-18s\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

      Emotional maturity is sure to be a factor. He adds: \u201cHow these players react and respond to things, particularly at younger ages, it\u2019s a lot more visible, whereas maybe the older players tend to try and disguise how they\u2019re feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n

      This is a behavioural theme where interdisciplinarity comes to the fore. \u201cWe\u2019re working with performance analysts to try and identify these behaviours through video footage and I think we\u2019ll end up with a bespoke set of behaviours based on the phase [foundation, U9-U11; youth development, U12-U16; professional development, U17-U23].\u201d<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. Effort-focused behaviours<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Displays of physical and psychological effort used to cope with setbacks, fatigue or demanding situations.<\/em><\/p>\n

        What does making an effort \u2018look like\u2019 in any sport? \u201cThere\u2019s a danger of making assumptions because every player is different,\u201d says Ashdown with reference to both physical and psychological indicators of effort. Their work has talked of pairing GPS data with observations but, as he admits, \u201cthis is where we need to be careful and cautious of not mislabelling players based on a perceived lack of effort and we must be aware of individual differences\u201d.<\/p>\n

        For Sarkar, again, it is more about setting the terms for a player development conversation. He says: \u201cYou might come up with a resilience profile to say one player has got hypothetically high effort-focussed behaviours and lower teammate-focussed behaviours, but we see this observational tool more holistically across all six themes\u201d.<\/p>\n

          \n
        1. Rebound resilience behaviours<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          These reflect a player\u2019s ability to bounce back quickly after a mistake or negative event.<\/em><\/p>\n

          These need to be channelled. It is no good if a player makes a mistake and runs around like a headless chicken for the next 10 minutes and is sent off.<\/p>\n

          \u201cOne of the participants in our research mentioned that exact point in relation to effort-focused behaviours,\u201d says Ashdown, before echoing Sarkar\u2019s earlier reflections. \u201cThe most value in this behavioural approach is the opportunities that it creates for player-coach or player-psychologist reflection.\u201d This, Sarkar suggests, could be a joint review of game video clips where the coach and\/or psychologist says to the player \u2018talk us through your thought process. What were you thinking and feeling at the time? How might you react and respond differently?\u2019 or it a series of \u2018what-if\u2019 questions and scenarios. \u2018What if this were to happen in the future? How would you react and respond?\u2019<\/p>\n

          Sarkar adds that any intervention should be context-specific. \u201cIf a player has done that once are we then making an assumption that they\u2019re doing that all the time \u2013 is this a one-off occurrence versus a pattern of occurrences? If it\u2019s a one-off, like Ben said, then it\u2019s probing that player about what they were thinking at that particular point in time. But we have to be careful that we\u2019re not intervening based on a one-off versus a pattern.\u201d<\/p>\n

            \n
          1. Robust resilience behaviours<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

            The ability to maintain stable performance while under sustained pressure or after setbacks.<\/em><\/p>\n

            Ashdown and Sarkar make the point that robust resilience behaviours risk being conflated with youthful inconsistency \u2013 and all its causes \u2013 at academy level.<\/p>\n

            \u201cOne of the participants in our research said it\u2019s not about consistency of performance but the consistency of behavioural responses to things. So performance will fluctuate but is there some consistency in the way they\u2019re behaving, reacting and responding?\u201d says Ashdown. \u201cWhat some of the coaches are after is a flattening of the curve emotionally and the way the players are managing things on the pitch.\u201d<\/p>\n

            Sarkar believes coaches may be able to use the resulting observational tool as a means of evaluating the efficacy of pressure training scenarios. \u201cWhat are you, the coach, actually seeing in terms of their reactions, responses, certainly from a behaviours point of view, and as a result of that pressure training, are you actually seeing an increase in some of the resilience behaviours in relation to these themes?\u201d<\/p>\n

              \n
            1. Learning-focused resilience behaviours<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

              When players learn from mistakes and adapt their actions rather than repeating ineffective responses.<\/em><\/p>\n

              Pressure training also presents an opportunity for self-reflection and learning through its video component \u2013 this is the ultimate purpose of this resilience behaviours work. \u201cIf we\u2019re aware of that, can we support them in navigating those more effectively when they\u2019re inevitably going to come up on the pitch?\u201d says Ashdown.<\/p>\n

              \u201cWe don\u2019t learn from experience, we learn from reflecting on experience,\u201d says Sarkar, paraphrasing the American educational reformer John Dewey. \u201cPressure training shouldn\u2019t just be about putting people under pressure in training and then automatically assuming somehow that they\u2019re going to develop their resilience to future situations?\u201d<\/p>\n

              At Derby County, led by Kirkham and supported by Ashdown, they have also introduced a series of gamification principles in delivering education and feedback at the academy through a resilience behaviours lens. This includes FIFA-style cards for players, and a football-specific version of snakes & ladders to mirror the ups and downs of the academy journey.<\/p>\n

              The future of resilience tracking<\/strong><\/p>\n

              When it comes to resilience, coaches are acting on intuition, which is valuable but ultimately has its limitations.<\/p>\n

              \u201cWe\u2019re trying to make that process more objective and systematic; hence this is where the interdisciplinary piece comes in,\u201d says Ashdown. \u201cWe wouldn\u2019t expect coaches in the moment in the game to be thinking about necessarily tagging or noting these behaviours. We might ask the analyst, with support from the psychologist, to do live coding or tagging of these behaviours or retrospective tagging based on the recording. That would then lead to conversations with the players. With this work, there\u2019s a big opportunity to bring together coaching, performance analysis, and psychology.\u201d<\/p>\n

              Sarkar explains that they are using the behavioural data to create a resilience profile for players across the noted behaviours. \u201cThat gives you a holistic viewpoint,\u201d he says. \u201cA player might have higher team-focused resilience behaviours and slightly lower effort-focused resilience behaviours and a medium level of learning-focused resilience behaviours. So, it gives you a nice overall resilience profile of an individual.\u201d<\/p>\n

              The hope is that their work will eventually provide an evidence-informed and objective approach to tracking resilience on the pitch.<\/p>\n

              \u201cIt can also then become part of the everyday conversation with multiple staff. So rather than just a conversation in relation to psychology, it\u2019s a broader conversation about player development.\u201d<\/p>\n

              What to read next<\/strong><\/p>\n

              <\/p>\n

              Playfulness and Resilience: How Ballet and Music Schools Link Them Together to Amplify Both<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n