What a great question and one that is discussed all over the world. Having been fortunate enough to work at all levels within professional football I have been asked this question many times before. Lets look at those players who consistently display the required levels of skill to a perform on a professional level in training but fail to reproduce in games. These players are often labelled as being mentally weak. If the opinion of many professional coaches is a reliable rule of thumb it would suggest that the answer to your question is 'mentality'. The problem with what is more important is whether we are considering a great 'individual' player or a great 'team' player? Believe me in the result end of the business there is a difference. The reason being within some successful teams you will have certain players employed to do a job to stop an opponent from performing. For instance you may have a very skillful passer of the ball(individual player) who with time can split your defense in two so you might employ someone very fit and physical(team player) to restrict his time and space. This person may be perceived by the public as an ordinary player who can be found on many amateur playing fields every Saturday afternoon up and down the country. However to a manager he would be priceless as would your skillful play maker. So i would have to say it would have to be a combination of the two(shouts of sitting on the fence). However i will also say that some players can get away with having one stronger trait than the other but to be a world class player if you are not strong mentally you will never grace the hall of fame of those really great players. Those who perform like great players from Monday through to Friday on the training ground but seem to go missing on match days are suffering from what i call 'white line' syndrome. Players who can not cope with both the internal and external pressures mentally. So the formula for a great player must be something like this: Mental Toughness x Ability = GREAT! You can be good with great ability and average mentality but you must have great ability and a superb mentality to be truly great.

The common denominator between great players is mentality!

For further information please visit my website www.more2me.co.uk or email me on dale@brooko.fsnet.co.uk

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