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Wolves captain reveals secret behind his mental strength

The former Barcelona defender, who is coming towards the end of his fifth season at Wolves, is a key member of the dressing room and was given the captaincy earlier this season when Mario Lemina was stripped of the armband.

And the Portuguese international insists his mind is one of his strongest assets that has helped him impact the Premier League.

“It’s easy not to get too excited, because in football, you never know what’s going to happen next," Semedo said.

"Tomorrow you might win 5-0 and then in the next game you lose 2-0. Especially here in the Premier League, it’s very competitive and totally unpredictable, so you should never let a loss kill you, but you can’t get too happy because you’ve won. 

"You need to find some balance. I find this quite easy because fortunately I’ve been in teams where we won a lot and I’ve won loads of trophies, but I also know how to cope with losing as well.

“We have to spend some time on that because sometimes you can play really well and the ball doesn’t go in, and there’s nothing you can do about it, so you have to move on. But there’s times when you lose or you don’t do a good game and you have to look through the stuff you did wrong to try to get better, and even the stuff you did well, to improve on that too so you can get even better.

"That’s the only time I usually spend time thinking about the games, because usually when I get home, I just switch off.

"I gained a lot of mental strength from all of the different experiences I’ve had, so I think I’m quite strong, mentally.”

That mental strength has helped him become skipper and a leader at Wolves, but the experienced defender admits he has had to work on this quality.

“Mentally, I’ve improved a lot, definitely," he added.

"When I was younger, I would take people’s opinions to heart and let it affect my head. I used to read all the stuff written about me, but now I don’t do that. If I do read or hear something, I just let it go in one ear and out the other, and I don’t let that affect me anymore. I’m more prepared for that.”

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