Psychologist helps put Bafana minds on goals

IT took the help of a sports psychologist for Bafana Bafana players to regain their belief that they had talent in abundance to beat Burkina Faso 3-1 at the FNB Stadium in Johannesburg on Saturday afternoon.

“The first thing we did with Martin Scheepers was to have a staff meeting where we ran things by him on what we wanted to address‚” coach Stuart Baxter said.

“He gave us some points and said, of the five, we were already doing four.

“The one point he said was missing was keeping the players’ minds on the ‘here and now’.

“We talked about the Cape Verde loss and the fact that it was a match that we went to already looking to Russia.

“He identified that we were not in the ‘here and now’ in that game.

“He also said that it’s going to take us about a year to get a winning culture in our mindset.

“I was afraid that he was going to be one of those people coming from the outside and the players thinking it’s boring. I didn’t want that to happen.

“The players had a session with him and said they thought it was interesting. It is good to have him on board.”

Stand-in captain Itumeleng Khune‚ who had an influence in both the second and third goal with his impeccable distribution from his goal area‚ also showered Scheepers with praise, saying he worked on the players minds, which helped them to focus and put all their energy into the match.

“Martin did a great job of working on our mindset,” he said.

“We were mostly focusing on social stress, which we all go through. Most of the time when we’re in camp we only have one training session. What do you do with the rest of the day?

“You’re on your phone and you’re on social media. You find people there sending you not-so-nice messages.

“We discussed that with Martin and the coach. The messages spoil the whole day and all the good work you’ve done with the coach.

“We played good, entertaining football on Saturday because our minds were where they are supposed to be.

“We need to get our fans back to supporting the team again, so we are happy with Martin’s contribution.

“Going forward we know what to do when things go the way they have been going. ”