Norway’s Lisa Naalsund: ‘Mental health is important. I’m no longer afraid of being me’

Welcome to Moving the Goalposts, the Guardian’s new (and free) women’s football newsletter. Here’s an extract from this week’s edition. To receive the full version once a week, just pop your email in below:

Anyone who has struggled with mental health will know how difficult it is to take that first step. Whether it’s a lack of confidence, anxiety or something else, opening up is a daunting prospect. But, when you do, it is also the most rewarding, enabling you to perform at your best.

For an elite footballer, self-confidence is key. It is often said that a happy footballer makes a successful one and it is important for players to be able to thrive. This was the reason Lisa Naalsund, the Brann and Norway midfielder, jumped at the offer of support in 2019.

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Having progressed through Norway’s youth system, she started to realise something was wrong. Feeling her mental boundaries were inhibiting her performances on the pitch she sought help from a performance coach. “I felt like I was really shy and insecure as a person,” she reflects, “not as a football player because that was the one thing I was good at. I felt like my personality was getting in the way of me performing at my best.”

Her support came from a familiar face. Her strength coach was looking to train in mental health education and needed athletes to practise on. For Naalsund, the timing was perfect. Within a year of making that first step, she could see the difference both in herself and on the pitch: “I feel like I have become more mature, and I have become more like me. I’m not afraid of being me. So that gives me confidence that helps on the field or in the games