Can 'cognitive training' really improve a footballer's game intelligence?

Football teams have been attempting to hone players’ mental skills, from anticipation to decision-making, since the 1950s, when Brazil’s pioneering psychologist Joao Carvalhaes introduced Pele and his teammates to psychometric tests. But as techniques such as virtual reality (VR) training sessions become more commonplace, how close are clubs to developing cognitive training which can really make a difference to attributes such as reaction speed?

It’s a subject that was discussed as part of a debate at the Sports Tomorrow Congress, an event arranged by Barcelona’s Innovation Hub. Featuring speeches from Alan McCall, part of Arsenal’s Performance and Research Team, Mark Williams, a senior research scientist from the Institute of Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC), and neuropsychologist Gabriele Cattaneo, the session analysed the extent to which teams are already adopting tools such as VR, the merits of the approach and the potential pitfalls of developing cognitive skills away from the training pitch.

Here’s a rundown of the key takeaways from the event, which should be useful to anyone with an interest in coaching, psychology or elite performance.

Forget the hype: no club in the world has mastered the use of VR

It’s a striking claim, but when Williams, who works with the US Department of Defence and NASA, speaks, it’s worth listening.

Referencing what he views as the three pillars of an effective approach to using VR - high-quality technology, coach buy-in and ‘instructional system design’ (a framework showing - amongst other things - how VR sessions will be structured, who they will be aimed at and the specific cognitive skills which will be developed) - the IHMC scientist said that he knows of no club in the world which has this trinity in place.

Even if sports science teams have purchased state-of-the-art equipment (of which more later) and persuaded the coach of the value of the technology, the elusive pillar tends to remain the approach that determines how the tool is used.

It’s a challenge that means some of the advantages of VR remain unlocked. For example, simulating varying exercises - such as a right-back facing ten different scenarios in which he has to make a quick decision - in a fraction of the time they would take on the training pitch is useful, but if the defender in question is left fatigued because the club isn’t managing the stress inflicted by his new ‘virtual’ environment, the training doesn’t serve a purpose.

Recalling conversations with a number of coaches from different countries, McCall supports Williams’ assertion that effectively implementing VR remains a challenge for many clubs. He listed a number of downsides reported to him in the course of his discussions, including players not being able to feel a ball during exercises that see them kicking thin air, muscle soreness brought on by unnatural movements, and an inability to use their peripheral vision when donning VR headsets.

According to McCall, Arsenal receive two to three approaches a month from tech vendors, so it’s easy to see why clubs need to be attuned to the practicalities of adopting the latest technology.

The Gunners use a filtering system based on best practice lifted from the medical profession, assessing the impact of a tool (such as VR) and the effort required to deploy and integrate it via a five-point scorecard. The screenshots suggest that suppliers have some way to go to convince McCall and his counterparts of their products’ merits.

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On-pitch training is still vital to harnessing cognitive skills, but needs to focus on facilitating decision making

In the above image, you can see green squares in the top left-hand corner of McCall’s matrix. That’s where on-pitch training sits, according to the Arsenal sports scientist, who is convinced that traditional methods still have a role to play in developing skills such as scanning (the visual perception denoted by a player’s eye movements in the seconds before he or she receives a pass). It’s a view supported by a number of coaches he spoke to prior to the event in Barcelona, with the table below illustrating their belief in the efficacy of training delivered on the grass.

However, whilst there’s clearly room for both virtual and ‘real life’ training aimed at developing cognitive skills, teams do need to be conscious of the type of activities they’re employing. Williams suggests that teams need to focus on developing the type of training which will encourage players to make decisions, if they’re interested in improving game intelligence.

Referring to a study conducted in 2015, which focused on practice activities employed by a top Spanish side, Williams revealed that 60% of the players’ time was spent on routines such as grid work, which do not require the kind of decision-making needed in a match.

We need more evidence to demonstrate the benefits of cognitive training

Despite studies showing links between cognitive skills and performance (such as the analysis of more than 250 elite players conducted by Professor Geir Jordet’s team, which demonstrated that more frequent scanning leads to a higher probability of completing a pass), there is a paucity of data supporting the theory that cognitive training improves on-pitch attributes.

Indeed, in the case of neuroscience innovations that aren’t sport-specific, Williams says that the evidence showing their effectiveness is slim at best. This stems from the idea that transferring skills from training to ‘distantly related tasks’ (such as taking response times honed via lab-based reaction speed tests onto the football pitch) is an ineffective way of improving performance.

It’s an insight that clubs are already using to inform their operations, with McCall suggesting that Arsenal factored the thinking into a decision not to use cognitive tests when recruiting players. As the field continues to develop at pace, it will be interesting to see what other intelligence clubs chose to apply in the future.

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