ABSTRACT
A balanced recovery-stress state has become more important across the season, due to the big effort young football players are putting into their sport. Recovery and an increase in Overall Stress, rather drastic changes could be observed when comparing the scores before and after a Bundesliga match. For the monitoring of acute recovery and stress states in a professional Australian Rules football team throughout the season, the Acute Recovery and Stress Scale were used to identify players who should receive additional attention. During this four-week supervision, several 16-year-old players had to fill in the Short Recovery and Stress Scale every morning after waking up. The players were confronted about the situation, asked to give their perspective and, following to the intervention, the conflict was sorted out. From an intervention perspective, the pre-match assessment could call on the coach or sport psychologist to intervene in order to increase self-efficacy and remind and refresh the player’s performance capabilities..
