How Ronaldo and Neymar perform in crunch games

Cristiano Ronaldo is ‘oblivious’ to pressure but Neymar seems to choke under stress: Researchers investigate how professional football players perform in crunch games

Researchers from Belgium analysed 7,000 professional games to assess players
They found Sergio Aguero thrives under pressure but Luis Suarez plays worse
They say analysing how players react under stress is valuable for coaches

By Sam Blanchard Health Reporter For Mailonline

Published: 15:57 GMT, 26 February 2019 | Updated: 16:55 GMT, 26 February 2019

The way stress affects footballers and how well they perform can now be measured using artificial intelligence, according to scientists.

Understanding how mental pressure changes a player’s performance could affect how their training should be adapted and impact transfer fees.

The researchers found that while Cristiano Ronaldo and Manchester City striker Sergio Aguero thrive in high-stakes situations, Barcelona’s Neymar Jr and Luis Suarez are more likely to crack under pressure.

The researchers said Juventus striker Cristiano Ronaldo (pictured left) is ‘oblivious’ to pressure and neither his performance nor decision-making skills suffer under stress. Sergio Aguero (second from right) also thrives under pressure, but Luis Suarez (second from left) and Neymar Jr (right) both struggle to perform and make good decisions when stressed

Researchers from the Katholieke Universitet Leuven in Belgium worked with data intelligence company SciSports to develop the computer programme.

By working out how important a match – or moment in a game – is, and how the player performs in that moment scientists could establish exactly how stress affects them.

The model analysed 7,000 professional games to break down pressure levels leading up to the match and a minute-by-minute analysis of how players were coping.

It could break down a decision – such as whether a player chose to pass or shoot in the final minute of a game – and decide whether it was a good or bad choice depending on how well it was executed and the effect it had on the game’s outcome.

‘Mental pressure has already been extensively studied in sports such as baseball and basketball but in football this is uncharted territory,’ said Professor Jesse Davis.

STRESS CAN LEAD YOU TO MAKE BAD DECISIONS

Chronic stress can cause you to make risky decisions like picking a job with a good salary but strenuous hours, say scientists.

Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2017 identified the part of the brain that becomes impaired under stress and leads to poor decision-making.

The study showed that stress leads to a sort of mental confusion between choices that will or won’t be rewarding, and can last for months.

Experiments on rats and mice found stressed out animals were far more likely to opt for dangerous alternatives in the hope of a bigger reward.

They identified impairments of a specific brain circuit which caused this abnormal decision making. Normally, when the circuit is turned on, neurons of the prefrontal cortex activate brain cells called high firing interneurons, which regulate how the mind weighs up risk and reward.

But, when the animals are stressed, these circuit dynamics shift and the cortex neurons fire too late and brain cells then become overexcited. This results in abnormal decision making.

According to its authors, the study – published in the journal Cell – findings could lead to treatments for anxiety and depression, and reducing the effects of stress to help people avoid bad decisions.

‘That’s why we have developed a model that uses machine learning to estimate how much mental pressure is experienced by the player in possession of the ball.

‘The model analyses how this player performs under pressure: which decision does he make, is the chosen action executed well and how much impact does the chosen action have on the outcome of the match?’

During the study they found certain players could rise to save the 89th-minute penalty or score a tie-breaking goal in a cup final.

But others might suffer a crisis of confidence or lose some of their skills in the heat of the moment.

The study also found Chelsea player Eden Hazard struggles to perform under pressure and ends up making worse decisions.

Manchester City midefielder Kevin De Bruyne performs well under pressure, it said, whereas Barcelona’s Ousmane Dembélé makes good decisions but his skills suffer.

England and Tottenham Hotspur midfielder, Dele Alli, was deemed to do particularly badly in the face of stress, with both his decision-making and skills suffering.

‘The most ideal scenario is for professional football players to have a stable performance, regardless of the pressure,’ said SciSports researcher Jan Van Haaren.

‘Our analyses show, for instance, that Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo is oblivious to pressure: his performances are constant.

‘Brazilian player Neymar, on the other hand, seems to choke under stress. He makes poorer decisions when there’s a lot of pressure.’

The scientists who did the research say the findings could be used by coaches and managers to determine how players can best be trained and to consider when deciding how much to buy or sell players for.

The research will be presented at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in Boston later this week.

HOW ELITE FOOTBALLERS PERFORM IN HIGH-PRESSURE SITUATIONS (Source: SciSports, KU Leuven)
Player	Team	Contribution	Execution	Decision	Notes
Luka Modric	Real Madrid	Lower	Lower	Lower	Modric’s performance decreases under pressure.
Karim Benzema	Real Madrid	Lower	Lower	Higher	The frequency of his shots decreases under pressure.
Lionel Messi	Barcelona	Same	Same	Lower	Messi performs in every situation. His decision ratings are lower in high-pressure situations, but that might be because he’s capable of bringing difficult actions to a succesful end.
Gerard Pique	Barcelona	Higher	Higher	Lower	Gerard Piqu? shines under pressure with a very high offensive contribution when the pressure mounts.
Mario Mandzukic	Juventus	Same	Same	Same	Mand?uki? is not affected by pressure.
Kylian Mbappe	Paris Saint Germain	Same	Same	Same	Mbapp? is not affected by pressure.
Edinson Cavani	Paris Saint Germain	Lower	Same	Same	Weaker at scoring in tense situations.
Vincent Kompany	Man City	Higher	Higher	Higher	No clear difference in defensive actions, but his contribution from offensive actions increases significantly in high-pressure situations. Kompany’s execution is rather low when there is lack of pressure.
Raheem Sterling	Man City	Lower	Lower	Higher	His shooting skills decrease while under pressure.
Romelu Lukaku	Man United	Lower	Same	Same	When the pressure is low, Lukaku is among the strikers with the highest contribution in the Premier League. In high-pressure game situations, his contributions are rather average.
Paul Pogba	Man United	Higher	Higher	Higher	Pogba performs better under pressure. His contribution ratings increase, especially due to his passing.
Mohamed Salah	Liverpool	Lower	Lower	Same	The contribution ratings of all his action types (including passes, dribbles, shots) decrease when the pressure mounts.
Trent Alexander-Arnold	Liverpool	Higher	Lower	Higher	Alexander-Arnold has a higher contribution while under pressure, due to his offensive actions.
Olivier Giroud	Chelsea	Higher	Same	Lower	Giroud is a real clutch goal-scorer. His contribution from shots doubles in tense situations.
Willian	Chelsea	Higher	Higher	Same	Willian shines under pressure.
Mesut Ozil	Arsenal	Higher	Lower	Same	In contrast to popular belief, we could not find proof of Ozil choking under pressure.
Granit Xhaka	Arsenal	Higher	Higher	Same	A high contribution from shots while under pressure.
Jan Verthonghen	Tottenham	Higher	Higher	Same	Among the best defenders when the pressure rises. No clear difference in his offensive contributions.
Harry Kane	Tottenham	Same	Lower	Lower	Kane takes his responsibility in high-pressure situations. He claims possession more often and, by consequence, more actions fail (lower execution). On the other hand his contribution is very high, regardless of the pressure level.

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