ZEPP FM 012 - Sport psychology in eSports with Ismael Pedraza

ZEPP FM | Sport psychology for athletes, coaches & future sport psychologists

Still, one of the very few sport psychologists working in eSports is Ismael Pedraza from Colombia. After playing football himself he realized during his studies of sport sciences how important the mental side of the game is, and he started to specialize in the field of sport psychology. Although he never really played video or computer games himself, he identified a huge demand of mental preparation in eSports, what lead him and some colleagues to found The Mental Craft – a company devoted to help athletes, teams and coaches in eSports improve their performances through sport psychology.

Ismael has been working in eSports for the last three years, which is an amazingly long time, because sport psychology wasn’t really popular in eSports a couple of years ago. While working with Misfits, one of the professional teams in the European League of Legends Championship Series (EULCS), they became the first Western team to take any games off of the then reigning World Champion SK Telecom T1. If – like myself - you’re not familiar what eSports competitions look like, you can get a great insight in the following video. I think, it’s somehow really fascinating.

In this episode, Ismael talks about his experiences in eSports, how he entered eSports as a sport psychologist, and how he thinks athletes, teams and coaches in eSports can benefit from sport psychology. Moreover, he gives some great advice for any sport psychologist who thinks about learning more about eSports and what is really necessary to know about eSports and the different video games in order to be able to successfully work in eSports. One important aspect he mentioned here was, that it can be even beneficial not to know anything or too much about eSports, and how this “not knowing” can set you up for a successful career as a sport psychologist in eSports.