An opinion piece by Catarina Morais, a lecturer at the Faculty of Education and Psychology at the Universidade Católica Portuguesa and coordinator of the Postgraduate course in Sport and Performance Psychology, and Carlos Filipe Fernandes, a Sport and Performance Psychologist and one of the coordinators of the Postgraduate course in Sport and Performance Psychology.
"Many clubs continue to value technical talent above all else. However, cases of burnout, demotivation, and early dropout are becoming more and more common.
The mental health of young athletes continues to be one of the biggest blind spots in sports. They train like adults, compete like professionals, but they are still teenagers trying to figure out who they are. When performance becomes the only metric of value, the pressure can be overwhelming."
