For several years now, thankfully, the media and people on social media have been getting better at talking about mental health and wellbeing. Psychotherapy and psychological support can finally be discussed without the taboo that once surrounded them, and people are being encouraged to engage with these issues, to become more familiar with them, and with the forms of help and support that are available. Sport is moving in the same direction, too: a number of clubs, footballers and athletes more generally (Juventus, Mattia Perin, Michail Antonio, Jude Bellingham, Robin Gosens, Simone Biles) have spoken openly about mental health, helping to make the subject less taboo. Now, though, it is time to take things a step further. That is where Athletics Mind comes in, the new platform founded by Andrea Ranocchia, the former Inter captain, together with CEO Luca Biondi, Michele Cucchiarini, who oversees digital development, and Luca Simonetti, responsible for the financial and strategic side. Massimo Ambrosini, Alessandro Bastoni, Fabio Fognini, Gianluca Gazzoli, Simone Giannelli, Filippo Magnini, Mattia Perin, Antonio Pintus and Andrea Pirlo are also involved in the project.
But what, exactly, is Athletics Mind? And what role will it have in helping athletes work on their mental wellbeing? Essentially, it is an app, an online platform that athletes of all ages, competitive and amateur alike, can access for specialist psychological and nutritional support. The team already includes more than 30 health professionals and is led by psychotherapist and sports psychologist Lucia Bocchi and Andrea Valigi, a doctor specialising in sports nutrition. Psychology is naturally the starting point, with the roster assembled in collaboration with the Centro Studi e Formazione in Psicologia dello Sport, but nutrition is part of it too. The two sides of Athletics Mind work together to offer personalised programmes to all users, although they can also be accessed separately: there is no need to be followed in both areas. The result is a genuine digital ecosystem, a point of reference for people who do sport, especially young people who dream of becoming professionals, or who simply want to have fun. Why not? Sports clubs, families, coaches, agents and federations can also access tailor-made packages.
The idea behind the project is that every athlete is, essentially, a person, primarily a person. Someone with vulnerabilities, someone who can go through good moments as well as difficult ones – the Athletics Mind logo reflects the ups and downs in performance that are part of an athlete’s life – and someone who may need support built around them. The ultimate aim, then, is not simply to support these people, but to do so in the right way, at the right time, with the right sensitivity. All of this is only possible when there is a direct relationship between health professionals and the person asking for help.
In this sense, Andrea Ranocchia’s words are particularly significant: “With the Athletics Mind project,” the former defender tells Undici, “we wanted to create a safe, qualified space in which to train the mind, an environment by athletes, for athletes, that would have been hugely useful to me when I was a professional. And the same goes for many other colleagues. The goal is for athletes, at every level, to enjoy their sport, to have a healthy relationship with their self-esteem, with their performances, with their results. We are not here to help people win, but to help them be able to say: ‘I did everything I could, I gave my best.’ It is an important difference, because in my case I needed to go through a process to accept certain situations. I think about injuries, the moments when my performances were not good, the periods when personal difficulties affected my performances on the pitch. If I had had support during those moments, I am sure my career would have gone better. That is what our project wants to offer every athlete, without distinction.”
Lucia Bocchi, who worked with Ranocchia during his career and is now alongside him in this new venture, has explained that “sport is a school for life, it teaches you how to live. And how to accept yourself. With Athletics Mind, we offer personalised programmes built around this awareness. We do it through our work as sports psychologists, as genuine guardians of mental wellbeing in sport.” For Athletics Mind, though, this is only the beginning: after the launch, the platform is already working to strengthen and expand its offering, organise live events and involve an ever-growing number of athletes and professionals. Because training the mind can sometimes be even more important than training the body. And now, thankfully, we are a little more aware of that.