Fandi Ahmad Singapore Masters National Stadium 2017
By Chensiyuan - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=64017999
Introduction
I watched an interview featuring Fandi Ahmad recently, and I thought it is worthwhile documenting what I learned from him after listening to the interview. He is a great role model for budding athletes, and I hope his stories continue to inspire.
Fandi Ahmad, for those who do not know, is a Singaporean football legend who is perhaps most known as the first Singaporean footballer to play in Europe. He played for FC Groningen in the Netherlands on a two-year contract from 1983. Reportedly, Fandi scored 11 league goals over 36 league games while with Groningen.
The link to the interview, produced by GEN X SINGAPORE, can be found here.
There are several interesting points in the interview, but I will just highlight two themes that should be relevant for any budding sportsperson. To motor behavior and sport psychology scholarly folks out there, it is interesting to have this chance to hear from a legend on some related topics.
Attaining expertise
The first theme is how his skills and expertise in football were developed.
Fandi spoke about how he practiced every day as a kid to get used to controlling his body, particularly to acquire accuracy in his passing and shots. He shared that his chest control of the ball was also honed by practicing using a wall. To me, it seems that he was the super enthusiastic kid who was intrinsically motivated to master his skills. Certainly, it helped that his father was also a national footballer who played for Singapore, and was supportive of his skills development.
Anyway, he summed up the part on his skills development by stressing that "practice correctly makes perfect".
Coping with pressure
The second theme was about how he coped with the pressure and excelled in his games. He spoke of how he mentally prepared for the games by adopting visualization routines beforehand. He visualized how his opponents would behave so he was prepared for their antics. During the games, he would always maintain his composure, exuding a calm and patient disposition despite the nasty and aggressive antics of his opponents. That says a lot about his immense focus on the game.
From his interview, it is also clear that Fandi is a man of strong self-belief who is hardly affected by his opponents. He also mentioned he loved playing for the spectators and fans. Such a positive evaluation of crowd presence is admirable. I was also impressed when he mentioned that he strove to score goals that are spectacular and difficult, to make them memorable for his fans. Clearly, he is one who adores challenges!
In a time when sport psychology services were rarely available, I like to think that Fandi must have somehow acquired those traits and mental skills organically.
After thoughts
After listening to Fandi's interview, I realized that there is great value in learning from sporting legends about their acquisition of expertise and composure in competitions. It would be interesting to read their stories and perhaps some research on how such successful athletes in the past acquired their attitude about training, mental skills, and mental strength, especially without the kind of coaching and sport psychology services we see today.
There isn't much research in this area based on my quick search, so this may be a good area to work on. If we believe that these living legends are like troves of treasures, and we can gather some enduring wisdom from these retired athletes, their stories are worth preserving. Collectively, it will be a gift to the world and can inspire current/future athletes.
While I cannot think of any new valuable theoretical implication of such work offhand, but I imagine some elements of these success stories and practices may corroborate well with what is advocated in contemporary sport psychology. Maybe when sporting legends share their experiences, they become great role models for budding athletes to adopt similar traits and practices.
Just like how the stories of Fandi Ahmad did for me, at least to the point of inspiring me to write this.