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Being ahead of the game—the association between executive functions and football performance in high-level football players

Dem Spiel voraus sein – Zusammenhang zwischen exekutiven Funktionen und der Fußballleistung bei hochklassigen Fußballspielern

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Abstract

The current study examined the association between executive functions and the performance of high-level football players. Participants of the study (N = 176) were male football players of the same club, who played in the teams of the U12 up to the U23. Executive functions, consisting of the subcomponents cognitive flexibility, inhibition, and working memory, were assessed with the Determination Test, the Response Inhibition task, and multiple-object tracking, respectively. Football performance was operationalized through a subjective performance rating by three independent raters and an objective Footbonaut score. The Footbonaut (C-Goal GmbH, Berlin, Germany) is a football training machine which passes balls to players who then have to control the ball and pass it through highlighted squares. Using two multiple regressions—for subjective and objective performance ratings, respectively—the separate associations of the three subcomponents of the executive functions with football performance were examined. Only the score of the Determination Test (as a measure of cognitive flexibility) was significantly associated with football performance (for both the subjective and objective measures). When controlling for age, cognitive flexibility was no longer a significant predictor for athletic performance. Further research is needed to determine whether the training of cognitive flexibility in addition to physical skills might be a possible approach to further increase performance and to improve talent development in youth athletes.

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Notes

  1. Mean and standard deviation of age was available for N = 160 football players.

  2. The instructions start with the explanation of the colored buttons, followed by an explanation of the auditory stimuli (and corresponding buttons) and the use of the foot pedals.

  3. If participants make more than three mistakes or do not react within 45 s three times, the introduction phase will be interrupted with the instruction to inform the test supervisor. The supervisor can restart the instruction phase to ensure instructions are understood.

  4. The INHIB starts with a standardized instruction phase with a practice trial in which participants first learn to press the corresponding buttons without the tone, afterwards the tone is introduced.

  5. Players should track the four players on the screen that are highlighted in the presentation phase and point them out (by their numbers) in the response phase.

  6. Only these 10 final trials were included in the final score.

  7. Test premises that were examined were: normal distribution, skewness and kurtosis, homoscedasticity, linear correlations, and multicollinearity.

  8. The youngest player in our study was 10.8 years old, the oldest player 37.1 years old, the second oldest 22.0.

  9. r(156) = −0.34, p < 0.001.

  10. Correlation between cognitive flexibility and age: r (157) = 0.49, p < 0.001; correlation between inhibition and age: r (154) = −0.25, p = 0.001.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Psychology, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany

    Lena Radke & Alica Mertens

  2. TSG ResearchLab gGmbH, Zuzenhausen, Germany

    Jan Spielmann & Jan Mayer

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  1. Lena Radke
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Correspondence to Lena Radke.

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L. Radke, A. Mertens, J. Spielmann, and J. Mayer declare that they have no competing interests.

The studies reported in this article were conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and the national ethical guidelines of the authors’ university.

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Radke, L., Mertens, A., Spielmann, J. et al. Being ahead of the game—the association between executive functions and football performance in high-level football players. Ger J Exerc Sport Res 53, 288–300 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12662-023-00885-8

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