Wolves captain Nelson Semedo discusses the mental side of the game, with the Portuguese defender admitting he tries not to let what has happened on the pitch affect his home life.
Mentally preparing for a game…
“To be honest, I don’t have a set routine to help me mentally prepare, I just do my usual stuff. I like to listen to music because it relaxes me, apart from that, I don’t do any other mental preparation for the game. I think it’s something you gain or you work on as you get more experience. I gained a lot of mental strength from all of the different experiences I’ve had, so I think I’m quite strong, mentally.”
Recovering from setbacks…
“We have to spend some time on that because sometimes you can play really well and the ball doesn’t go in, and there’s nothing you can do about it, so you have to move on. But there’s times when you lose or you don’t do a good game and you have to look through the stuff you did wrong to try to get better, and even the stuff you did well, to improve on that too so you can get even better. That’s the only time I usually spend time thinking about the games, because usually when I get home, I just switch off.”
Staying level-headed after positives…
“It’s easy not to get too excited, because in football, you never know what’s going to happen next. Tomorrow you might win 5-0 and then in the next game you lose 2-0. Especially here in the Premier League, it’s very competitive and totally unpredictable, so you should never let a loss kill you, but you can’t get too happy because you’ve won. You need to find some balance. I find this quite easy because fortunately I’ve been in teams where we won a lot and I’ve won loads of trophies, but I also know how to cope with losing as well.”
Beginning match preparations…
“As soon as the last game finishes, I’m already starting to prepare for the next one. The two days after a game I do my recovery because on the third day, I want to be fresh to give 100 per cent in training. I just try to rest, switch off, so the next day I’m ready to give the best part of me.”
Cutting off afterwards…
“I try to switch off straight away, but sometimes it’s really hard to not think about the games. Obviously, I try not to when I’m at home with my kids and my wife, and when I’m with them, I want to be completely with them and not thinking about football. It’s hard though, and I try not to, but sometimes you just can’t help thinking about the last match and it comes into your head, but I try to keep football and my home life separate.”
What has changed…
“Mentally, I’ve improved a lot, definitely. When I was younger, I would take people’s opinions to heart and let it affect my head. I used to read all the stuff written about me, but now I don’t do that. If I do read or hear something, I just let it go in one ear and out the other, and I don’t let that affect me anymore. I’m more prepared for that.”
