Not too far from being a sport psychologists and scientists, Azuar and I collaborated with Dr Jolly (she is a sport psychologist) coming up with some interesting work in mapping up individual’s zone of optimal functioning among footballers. As a result of frequent association with footballers, Azuar came out fit as never before. Unfortunately, in the year 2007, Kelantan football team wasn’t as famous as in 2009 when the team enter the final league in the Malaysia Cup. I wonder whether Halim Napi was then (2007) the temperamental goalkeeper as in 2009 when he was found guilty of started the clash against Kedahan at Stadium Sultan Mohd IV. To the contrary, this study has shown that this particular goalkeeper (whoever he was) in the Kelantan football team didn’t show statistically significant different in term of his emotional intensity within group compared to striker, defender and midfielder (Slide 16). So, if he was Halim Napi, his name to some extent has been cleared, so to speak.
Believe me or not, in most instances as shown by this study there is not much different between what position you play and emotional intensity. It is your individual’s subjective experiences proved to contribute to the unique characteristic of your emotional content.
Last but not least, you got to believe me, negative emotions are also good and functional in competitive sport as what I’d watched in Discovery channel some time ago. In 1974 fight in Zaire, a 32-year old former world boxing champion Muhammad Ali fought the younger undefeated heavyweight champion, George Foreman who was heavily favored to win the fight. Ali used an unusual strategy he called “rope-a-dope” to tire Foreman. He then proceeded to knock Foreman out and win the championship. In this head-to-head competition, Ali used deception and anger, which are the negative emotion to get Foreman to overextend himself. The loss to Ali so demoralized Foreman that he retired from boxing at age 28.
Idea-logy 