Review the mental toughness levels of the football players in development leagues

Objective: The aim of this research is to review the mental toughness levels of the football players in development leagues. Method: The research was conducted according to research screening model and 431 players in the development leagues in Teleset Mobilya Akhisarspor, Altay, Balıkesir Baltok, GrandMedical Manisaspor and Manisa Büyükşehir Belediyespor clubs attended to the research. Data was collected by talking face-to-face with the football players living in different cities, having active sport life in Development Leagues and attending to the study voluntarily. Personal information form developed by researcher and Sport Mental Toughness Questionnaire (SMTQ) that was developed by Sheard and others (2009) and translated into Turkish by Altıntaş (2015) were applied in the study. The data analysis in the research was conducted with the SPSS 20 program. With the aim of testing the research hypothesis, descriptive statistics were used in the analysis of data. One-way analysis of variance (Anova) was used for the three or more group from the statistical analysis and t test was used for comparison of two groups. To find out the in which groups the significant difference is originated from as a result of Anova test, Tukey HSD was applied in the cases that the variances show homogeneous distribution and Tamhane test was applied when the variances does not show homogeneous distribution. The significance level was indicated as p>0.05. Results: According to the findings obtained from the conducted analysis, it was found that there is a statistically significant difference in the mental toughness control sub-dimension age, league and championship life variabilities (p<0.05). According to club variability, along with the control and endurance sub-dimensions of mental toughness, there is a statistically significant difference also in between the mental toughness general averages (p<0.05). Regarding the position and sport age variability, no statistically significant difference was seen in mental toughness levels (p>0.05). Conclusion: The findings obtained from the study, in general there are statistically significant differences especially in control sub-dimension of mental toughness. Key words: football, development leagues, mental toughness.