Team sport is a type of sporting competition that involves teams of players or participants competing against each other in accordance with a set of rules to score points. The term team sport is also applied to sports where teammates facilitate the movement of a ball or similar object in order to advance the game’s action, such as tennis and rugby union. Other types of team sport include water sports and some track and field events.
Team sports offer many valuable life lessons to children that will benefit them well beyond the court, rink, or field, such as commitment, hard work, and a sense of community. Team sports also teach children how to deal with losses and turn them into a learning opportunity to improve. The social support system that is created through participating in team sports teaches children how to build trust with their teammates, coaches and family members.
One important aspect that distinguishes team sports from other types of groups is the clear standards for effort and performance that are established among group members. For example, members of a football team understand that they are expected to attend all practice sessions and perform at a high level during competitions. Similarly, basketball teams recognize that they are expected to cooperate with each other and coordinate their efforts in pursuit of victory.
In contrast, group members of a handball club may not necessarily understand the expectations of their teammates and are not always aware of how to contribute to achieving the team’s goals. This explains why some team members are prone to choking under pressure and can lead to the collapse of the entire team’s strategic system. According to Wergin et al. (2018), the development of team collapse occurs through a complex process that includes dynamic interpersonal processes such as the transfer of negative emotions and cognitions between team members and interactions such as blaming each other for failure.
These dynamics are not limited to team sports and could be applied to other situations such as the collapse of a political party or a business organization. However, in the context of a sports team, these dynamics are exacerbated due to the fact that the members of a sporting event are highly skilled and motivated to perform at their best.
As a result, team sport is an ideal environment to investigate the effects of various psychological factors on individual and collective performance. In the context of a sporting event, it is therefore particularly valuable to study how these processes occur and to develop interventions that can breach these dynamics and prevent a team’s collapse.