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Davide Ancelotti and his father Carlo
Davide Ancelotti cut his playing career short to focus on coaching

Every player will have their own psychologist.

The words are delivered with care. The journey began with his father almost two decades ago, when AC Milan pioneered the use of psychological support in European football.

The demands and resources thrown at elite players are intensifying the focus on the mental side.

Carlo was the Real Madrid manager when his son was an assistant. A young man with managerial ambitions is among a new generation looking for ways to improve their teams.

In a bid to improve cognitive skills, top European sides are trialling brain scans and virtual reality technology in a bid to improve perception.

The "risk-averse" attitude and "taboos" that still plague the game of football are part of a traditional culture of conservatism.

Short presentational grey line

The AC Milan training ground is on the edge of the city. The 'Mind Room' was an innovative psychology laboratory that helped underpin an unprecedented run of success during the 23 years it was operational.

It sparked an interest in the subject.

After taking a break from playing to focus on coaching, he received a commendation for his university thesis on players' motor skills. He joined his father in coaching jobs before he joined Madrid.

The pair have intermittently implemented psychology and player welfare initiatives over the course of the past decade, but most of them were meant to support the coaching team.

He says that in the past they have tried to have someone come in that the players didn't know was a psychologist.

It was more for the staff to understand psychology. Whether it's a good time to talk or not to talk, we need to know how to approach players.

Players at Madrid have their own psychologists. Young players have a better understanding of mental health and psychology now that it's more talked about.

I don't think you should have a single psychologist for the whole squad.

Liverpool's Trent Alexander Arnold wearing a brain scanning device in training
Liverpool used brain imaging technology in training before last season's Champions League final

The rise in the number of teams that use psychologists to work with the entire first-team squad is interesting.

The work of specialists trained in supporting players' confidence and focus, as well as identifying mental health issues such as anxiety and depression, is increasingly being done by the teams in the premier league. A first-team member returning from a long layoff could be helped by a psychologist by working with their team-mates to set goals.

Geir Jordet is a psychology professor who has spent more than 15 years advising leading European clubs. He thinks players will become more in charge of their own development when it comes to psychology and training.

Virtual reality technology, which recreates thousands of in-game situations taken from real-life elite matches and monitors a user's response, is being used by a number of top level players.

After analyzing more than 250 elite players, Jordet's team found that scanning has a small, but positive, effect on performance, with more frequent scanning leading to a higher likelihood of completing a pass.

With players' interest in physical data ranging from top speed to distance covered during a game, measurements such as scanning timing and Frequency could become the subject of similar attention.

Malcolm Harkness thinks that might become the norm.

Tim and his son Harkness worked in the backroom for just under four years. He was involved in the coding of the games.

Harkness would use a simple criterion to determine the extent to which each action showed confidence, motivation or focus.

A shot from outside the area would be considered a confidence action and rewarded with a point. An attacking run made by a full-back would be seen as a demonstration of motivation while a successfully completed through ball would see the player making the pass.

"For the last few decades, you've had loads of statistics, measuring possession, number of passes and number of shots, but I don't think anyone had really looked too much into the number of psychological actions," Harkness told The Football Psychology Show.

A lot of patterns emerge when you code between 10 and 20 games.

Harkness acknowledges that the system relies on subjective criteria which can overlap and that he and his father would rigorously analyse actions that could fall. It didn't matter where some players were worried.

Harkness says that before Hazard left, he broke the charts.

He made everyone else look like they didn't do anything at all.

The Belgian's brilliance wasn't hard to define during his time at the club.

"Callum would come off the bench and be very effective, he would drive the intensity of the game and give confidence to the other players."

A lot of focus actions would be seen with N'Golo Kante. It looked like he was in the right place at the right time, but he was so focused that he couldn't see anything.

A lot of actions would be recorded through pressing. He uses his fitness to put pressure on the defence and drive the press of the team. He went to the right-back, the center-back, the goalkeeper and the other side of the field.

He doesn't have to do that but he does.

Harkness said it was difficult to highlight the project's findings to the coaching team. He doesn't mind the difficulties associated with working for a premier league team.

"Petr Cech was very involved in the project and I think he found a lot of value in the data we gave."

It's difficult to get your say at a top level club. You don't want to act like you've got the most important information because you've still got a whole analysis team, but that's just part of working for a big club.

The players have a lot of interest in the gps data and we put a visualization on the TV after each match.

They would ask questions if it showed their max speed and distance covered. Tammy Abraham and Mason Mount were very competitive with each other.

In the future, I think there might be a lot of value in a player looking through thepsychological coding data and seeing where he isn't getting as many actions as another player in the same position.

If Harkness is correct, players' post-training routines could include a quick look at their brain.

Brain scanning technology can be used to identify neural activity associated with conditions such as anxiety, depression and insomnia.

The players were told to wear a headset that recorded electrical signals from the body. Within six minutes, the information is used to create an image of the brain that is cross-referenced against a baseline scans, allowing players to detect the emergence of biomarkers associated with conditions such as sleep deprivation.

The company that worked with Lens was founded by Antony Branco-lopes. Football clubs tend to be risk-averse in assessing the merits of cognitive technology compared to other sports.

They talk a lot about mental health and enhancing performance, but when it comes to actually doing something, they are a bit scared.

We don't have these issues with e-sport and motorcyle, but in football I don't think this is the case.

Jordet, who co-founded the 'Be Your Best' virtual reality training platform used by Hoffenheim and the German Football Federation, has encountered skepticism over psychological training within the game.

"In my career in football, I've never seen experienced coaches so into research and methodology as when they discussed this virtual reality training."

They wouldn't ask the same type of questions with respect to exercises they will do every day in training, because they've been used for so long and they're just part of football.

Suddenly old-school football coaches become academics if you have a new technology.

Football has a traditional culture of conservatism, a sceptical attitude to new things, new methods and new innovations that are more prevalent than other sports.

It's a case of evolution being forced. Football has no choice but to change due to the increasing demand for psychological support from the players.

He says that when he was playing, people didn't think of a therapist as someone who could help them.

Some areas of the football world are not open to this aspect. It's about the culture of the sport.

They are more willing to talk to therapists in England. The players atEverton took care of their mental health when they suffered with anxiety. It's not the same in other countries. More taboos exist.

The way we manage people and the way our players make decisions need to be improved.

We have to adapt to society changing.