Coming Back Stronger from a Long-Term Injury

Every high-level athlete faces their own form of adversity. It’s inevitable. At some point in your journey, you’re going to have to deal with a setback like getting cut from the team, getting rejected from your dream school, or getting injured. Certain injuries - like a torn ACL, which is too common - can have recovery periods of 9 months to a full year.

Setbacks hurt because they complicate your path towards your long-term goal. But that doesn’t mean this goal is no longer attainable. Many of your favorite soccer players have prevented injuries from derailing their careers by using them as opportunities to become stronger, smarter, and more well-rounded athletes.

Here’s how you can do the same:

Follow Your Doctor’s Orders

First off, it’s absolutely crucial to do exactly what your doctor says. Yes, it’s frustrating to hear that you can’t engage in a certain physical activity for a certain period, and you may even feel like your doctor is being excessively cautious.

As former pros who have dealt with myriad injuries ourselves, trust us when we say that disobeying your doctor’s orders isn’t worth the risk. You could unknowingly worsen your injury, extending your hiatus from competition even further.  

By obeying your doctor and accepting the reality of your situation, you can start focusing on what you can do, not what you can’t do. And if you’re really not sure, feel free to get a second opinion.

Focus on Improving Your Soccer IQ

If physical exercise is strictly limited, this is the perfect time to focus on the most overlooked - and yet most important - aspect of your game: your soccer IQ. This is a reflection of your ability to make good decisions during play, and a good decision is one that helps your team.

Thanks to video analysis services like BGTV, athletes can watch clips of professional games showing high-level players in their position making good decisions in important moments. And high-level players don’t just make good decisions when they have the ball. A major advantage of video analysis is that it shows how players behave when they don’t have the ball, which is essential because the average player is on the ball for just 4% of the game.

The more professional footage you watch, the easier it will be to emulate these tactics when you make your return and show your coach that you are undeniably a high-level player.

Develop Your Resilience

Odds are, this won’t be the only unforeseen challenge you’ll face as a young soccer player. The typical soccer journey is a bumpy rollercoaster with all sorts of twists and turns, not a smooth ride upstream.

So, this is also your opportunity to develop another essential quality of a high-level player, and that’s resilience. Lots of players can perform when life is going their way, but only some can perform just as well (if not better) after switching clubs, getting benched, or in your case, returning from an injury.

Adversity Hurts, But It’s Inevitable

We’re not going to sugarcoat it: Staying focused on your goals when adversity strikes isn’t easy. This is why more and more young soccer players are exploring mentorship, or mindset coaching. A big part of a mentor’s job is changing your perspective towards adversity so you view it as a natural, normal part of your journey, as opposed to something that deserves to be feared.

At Beyond Goals Mentoring, we also help young athletes stay focused by identifying their “why,” or what it is about soccer they love. Battling through injuries is much easier when you know exactly why soccer is so important to you in the first place. And all that hard work is meaningless if you’re not having fun on the field, right?  

So, if your athlete is struggling with a recent setback, let’s set up a mentoring session today.