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New research has found football players have higher levels of cognitive abilities such as advanced planning, working memory, and cognitive flexibility, compared to the general population.
The findings, published in the PNAS Journal, analysed 204 elite players from top-division teams in Brazil and Sweden, alongside 124 control participants. Using a variety of tasks assessing executive functions, memory, planning, and personality traits, the researchers uncovered several striking results.
In a major collaborative effort, bringing together the Universities of Oxford, Aarhus, Bologna, CQUniversity Australia, Rio de Janeiro State University and Karolinska Institutet, the research team found that elite football players consistently outperformed control participants and the general norm in areas such as cognitive flexibility, planning, and working memory.
The study also revealed a distinctive personality profile among elite football players: they were more conscientious, extraverted, and open to new experiences than the controls. They also showed lower levels of agreeableness and neuroticism. Both their cognitive skills and personality features were shown to predict key football behaviours, including goals, assists, and successful dribbles.
Using artificial intelligence, the researchers were also able to distinguish elite football players from controls with 97% accuracy based on their sole cognitive and personality features. Nevertheless, the researchers emphasise that other psychological factors, such as mental toughness and group cohesion, may also have a significant impact on successful football performance.
“Countless individuals dream of becoming soccer players, though only a select few manage to achieve this goal. We wanted to find out what makes elite soccer players so special and what drives their success", said lead author, Dr Leonardo Bonetti, Junior Research Fellow in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Oxford and Associate Professor at the Centre for Music in the Brain at Aarhus University in Denmark. He continued:
However, in recent years, cognitive abilities have emerged as a critical factor. Our study not only confirms this but also significantly expands on previous findings by combining comprehensive psychological assessments with cutting-edge machine learning techniques.”
Preliminary research has previously suggested that elite players possess exceptional cognitive skills, particularly in executive functions, enabling them to adapt quickly to the dynamic nature of the game. However, those studies were often small or used non-elite players.
Building on these findings, the researchers from Sweden, Brazil, Denmark, Italy, and the United Kingdom decided to do a major collaborative study to explore the cognitive and psychological profiles of elite football players specifically.
“This research not only advances talent identification and player development but also explores the connections between cognition, personality, and behavior,” said senior author Professor Petrovic, of the Karolinska Institutet.
"It raises the intriguing possibility that traits like executive functions, planning, and memory may have been shaped by active group interactions throughout human history, such as cooperative activities like hunting. Soccer, with its dynamic and collaborative nature, provides an ideal context to study these traits.”
By decoding the cognitive and psychological profile of elite players, the study offers valuable insights into the psychology of human excellence and highlights the brilliance of top athletes.