Level of State Anxiety among Youth Football Players According Different Playing Positions

The aim of the study was to examine and describe the level of state anxiety among football players according diff erent playing positions. The research group consisted 61 male youth football players (goalkeepers, defenders, midfi elders and (forwards) attackers) of age ranged from 16 to 19, from Fanzeres Academy -city of Porto Portugal-The subjects were randomly selected and were categorized by their playing positions. The Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI-2) was used to collect data, sport-specifi c state anxiety scale, the CSAI-2 was developed to Portuguese version. Descriptive statistics, kruskal-wallis Test and spearman’s correlation analysis were used to calculate data. The results showed that there was above moderate level of state anxiety among youth football players and no signifi cant diff erence in state anxiety among youth football players according playing positions. It is essential that coaches and sport psychologists develop strategies to identify the state anxiety of youth football players in order to enhance their performance.


Introduction
Athletes and coaches oft en use the words "anxiety", "stress" and "arousal" interchangeably and because their listeners generally know what they are trying to say it does not lead to miscommunication. Precision is needed. Anxiety refers to the levels of perceived threat i.e., accompanied by worry nervousness and apprehension. A key idea in anxiety is athletes' interpretation of the danger to their wellbeing. Sometimes anxiety is a normal response to real threats, such as when individuals are confronted by an armed person. Sometimes anxiety involves an exaggerated response to in imagined threat, such as my reaction to spiders (except in Australia where they can kill you!). Anxiety is typically accompanied by high arousal, but the two are not the same. People can be highly aroused yet not anxious such as when athletes win major competitions (Tod, 2014). Spielberger (1966Spielberger ( , 1972 further noted that for a theory of anxiety to be an adequate .it must diff erentiate as a mood state and as personality trait. additionally, it must diff erentiate among the stimulus conditions antecedent to these forms of anxiety. Spielberger (1966) proposed the state-trait theory of anxiety, which diff erentiates between state and trait anxiety. State anxiety (A-state) is defi ned as an emotional state "characterized by subjective, consciously perceived feelings of apprehension and tension, accompanied by or associated with activation or arousal of the autonomic nervous system". Th is condition varies from moment to moment and fl uctuates proportional to the perceived threat in the immediate situation. Trait anxiety (A-trait), on the other hand, is "a motive or acquired behavioural disposition that predisposes an individual to perceive a wide range of objectively non-dangerous circumstances threatening and to respond to these with state anxiety reactions disproportionate in intensity to the magnitude of the objective danger". Th e state-trait theory of anxiety predicts that high-trait-anxious individuals will perceive more situations as threatening and react with greater state anxiety in a greater variety of situations than low-trait-anxious individuals. Adopting a multidimensional approach, Martens and Burton (1990) proposed that cognitive anxiety, somatic anxiety and self-confi dence each had diff erent relationships with performance. Performance was predicted to have a negative relationship with cognitive anxiety (increase in cognitive anxiety is associated with decrease in performance). Somatic anxiety was hypothesized to have an Inverted-U (Inverted-U theory 1908) relationship with performance. self-confi dence was predicted to have a positive relationship with performance (increased self-confi dence is associated with improved performance). Along with proposing the multidimensional anxiety theory, Martens also published the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI2) to help researchers test the model's predictions. In sport, anxiety plays an important role on deteriorate athlete's performance (Cox, Qiu, & Liu,1993;Raglin & Hanin, 2000;Ortiz, 2006). Athletes realized the infl uence of anxiety in determining win or lose (Sanderson,1989).
Football is a team sport. In order to succeed, it is necessary for highly specialized players in specifi c positions and tasks to help one another. For a successful soccer team; each player should be trained not only for conditional attributes like endurance, strength, speed or agility but also should be trained technically and tactically. In accordance with that, each player should have diff erent physical, physiological and psychological attributes depending on his/her playing position (Akın, Kireker, & Koklu, 2009;Pivovarnicek, Pupis, & Lacena, 2015). Although there are some studies showing that psychological factors like concentration, competition anxiety, anger style, anger management, self-image, self-esteem can aff ect player's playing style and injury risk, they do not seem to be enough in number (Kurt, Catikkas, Omurlu, & Atalay, 2012; Martinez-Rodriguez, Chicoy-Garcia, Leyva-Vela, Martinez-Hernandez, & Manzanares Serrano, 2017).
A study conducted by Allie, Larson, and DeBeliso (2018) on levels of anxiety among North American football players. Th e purpose of the study was to determine if anxiety level diff ers between NCAA Division 1 North American football players based on position played and determine intra-individual and inter-position diff erences in anxiety level prior to a scrimmage versus a practice scenario. Th e results showed that 63.9% of players have average anxiety and no statistical diff erences in anxiety categories were found between positions or between the practice and the scrimmage. Another study conducted by Suleiman and Rao (2016) on competitive anxiety level of Ethiopian male football players and its impact on their performance. Th e descriptive Statistical analysis indicates that they were at the "average level" of competitive anxiety. Th e ANOVA result shows that there was no signifi cant diff erence in competitive anxiety among the group of players across their playing position. A study conducted by Vincent and Yahaya (2013) on cognitive and somatic anxiety among football players of diff erent ethnics' groups in Malaysia. Th e result showed that Malay ethnic categories exhibited as higher levels of cognitive anxiety, whereas Indian ethnic exhibit a higher level of somatic anxiety.
Th e aim of this study was to know the level of state anxiety among football players as well as to investigate the cognitive anxiety, somatic anxiety and self-confi dence among football players in diff erent playing positions. Perhaps most importantly, the study operationalized and included some new variables (youth football players ranging from 16 years to 19 years and playing diff erent positions -goalkeepers, defenders, midfi elders and forwards). Th e research study questions were as follows: QUE.1 Is there high level of state anxiety among youth football players?
QUE.2 Is there signifi cant diff erence in state anxiety among youth football players according playing position?

Participant
Th e study consisted 61 football players from Fanzeres Academy -city of Porto Portugal. Th e ages of players ranged between 16 and 19 years with a mean age of 16.77±1.05 years. On average, the players had played for 7.97±2.43 years. A large number N=21 (34.4%) of the players were defenders, followed by midfi elders N=18 (29.5%), forwards N=16 (26.2%), and goal keepers N=6 (9.8%).

Procedure
Th e clearance was obtained from the president of team prior to all study procedures. Th e test took place in a Hall Meetings on sport complex. participants provided informed consent. Th en, they were provided with a questionnaire package and asked to respond to each question as honestly as possible. Coach with me remained nearby to answer any questions that arose during testing (in Portuguese language). Th e questionnaire package took approximately 15-20 minutes and was administered to the participants approximately 1 hour before competition.

Data analyses
Descriptive statistics was computed to characteristics the entire sample of football players, and to know level of state anxiety and Kruskal Wallis Test was used to explore the diff erences of Football players' state anxiety according to their playing position.

Level of state anxiety
Findings related to the level of state anxiety among football players are shown in Table 1.
In Table 1, the average scores of state anxiety among football players for each item are given. It may be observed that football players had above average scores in total (M=2.71), remarkably, they scored lower on the nineteenth (M=1.62) and higher on the eleventh and the fourteenth (M=3.40).
In Table 1, the average scores of state anxiety among football players for each item are given. It may be observed that football players had above average scores in total (M=2.71), remarkably, they scored lower on the nineteenth (M=1.62) and higher on the eleventh and the fourteenth (M=3.40).

State anxiety among football players according playing positions
Football players' state anxiety was also examined according to their playing position as indicated in Table 2. In Table 2, the average scores of state anxiety dimensions among football players are given. It may be observed that football players had higher average scores (M=3.11) in self-confi dence dimension, remarkably, they scored lower average scores (M=2.09) in somatic state anxiety dimension and they had average scores (2.68) cognitive state anxiety dimension.
Kruskal-Wallis Test was used also to compare football players' state anxiety according to playing position. Th e comparison analysis demonstrates that there were no signifi cant diff erences (p>0.5) between cognitive state anxiety, somatic state anxiety and self-confi dence.

Discussion
Th e study, which was carried out to determine the level of state anxiety among football players, revealed some important information and results. As results of this study, it was concluded that the football players had above moderate level of state anxiety although the youth players belong to amateur team. Th e mental component, typically termed cognitive anxiety, is closely related to worry and deals with 'negative expectation and cognitive concerns about oneself, the situation at hand and potential consequences' (Morris, Davis, & Hatchings, 1981). Athletes can develop cognitive anxiety because of their inability to perform or fear of performance failure. Athletes also have the tendency to worry the negative evaluation of their schoolmate, teachers, friends, fans, which can cause the level of cognitive anxiety increase. As well as somatic anxiety refers to athletes' changes in their physiology, such as increased perspiration, diffi culty in breathing, increased heartbeat, changes in the brain wave, elevated blood pressure, increased urination, butterfl ies in the stomach, less saliva in the mouth and muscle tension. Th e sympathetic nervous system is stimulated by fear perception in the cerebral cortex, prompting an immediate stress response. Athletes, who have learned anxiety management skills, oft en respond to a greater degree to anxiety symptom but return to their resting rate sooner than those athletes, who are not trained in anxiety management (Vincent & Yahaya, 2013). Th is result corresponds to the fi ndings of (Turksoy, Bayansalduz, Altinici, & Atikir, 2012;Zeng, 2003;Allie et al., 2018).
Th e results were concluded that no signifi cant diff erence was found when comparing football players' state anxiety according the playing positions. Th is fi nding is inconsistent wit h the results of other investigations (Kirkcaldy, 1982;Andrew, Grobbelaar, & Potgieter, 2007;Eloff , Monyeki, & Grobbelaar, 2011). Kirkcaldy (1982) for example, found that players in defensive positions in soccer showed higher emotional stability than players in attacking positions. Another probable reason for inconsistency between the current fi ndings and those stemming from earlier research was the young age of the participants. McCarthy, Jones, Harwood and Olivier (2010) postulated that young sport participants have less approximations of psychological skill usage compared to adult participants. Th e mean age of the sample in the present study was 16.77±1.05 years old, which could be attest to insignifi cant relationship noticed between psychological skills and playing positions. Jooste, Steyn and Van den Berg (2014) support this view by conceding that athletes in the specialization stage (mean age 16.2±1.13years) may be at the ideal "windows of opportunity" for developing adult-like attributes and should, therefor, not be compared to older athlete's groups. In fact, the current study failed to concur with other investigations could be explained by the amateur level of participation of the sample tested in the present study. Th e results of the present study suggest that youth football players competing at amateur level they had homogeneously some psychological characteristics regardless of their respective position in the team. Th is fi nding, pertinent to soccer players, is corroborated by Kurt et al. (2012) who credited such homogenous results to the similar status (amateur/ professional) of the participants. As well as the results of study is consistent with results of (Allie et al., 2018;Suleiman & Rao, 2016).
In conclusion, when making literature reviews, as parallel with many researches, present study was inconsistent with studies and consistent with others. Th e fi ndings indicated there was above moderate level of state anxiety among youth football players. And the diff erent playing positions were compared in term of state anxiety, there was no signifi cant diff erence in state anxiety among football players according playing positions. Can be said that this situation is largely related to the groups having similar status (amateur), similar age and football experience. Future qualitative research which covers the test having multi-variables on state anxiety and others psychological characteristics could be performed. And suggesting a program to decrease state anxiety among football players.