Consistencia y fluctuación de los estados de ánimo en un equipo de fútbol profesional durante una competición de play off

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to describe a football team's mood processes during competitions through the administration of specific measures. A second division (level B) Spanish football team (Rayo Vallecano SAD, Madrid, Spain) was evaluated by means of the short Spanish version (15 items, Fuentes, García-Merita, Meliá and Balaguer, 1995) of the Profile of Mood State (POMS, MacNair, Lorr and Droppelmann, 1971), four times during the play-off phase (after the end of the regular season) to move on to a higher level during the 2006-07 Spanish Professional Soccer League season (level 2A). The results showed the absence of significant differences in the scores on the POMS' five scales (Depression, Vigour, Anger, Fatigue and Tension) recorded before the four play-off matches, meaning the existence of a consistency in the team's mood states during the whole phase of the play-off and the absence of significant fluctuations in mood mediumlasting processes. Despite that, the POMS' graphic averages displayed several patterns related to different scales. We suggest that the proposed method is useful in studying athletes' and teams' cognitive-emotional processes during specific types of ongoing competitions, as they ensure high ecological validity and provide information for more effective interventions tailor-made for teams.