Using your head: neuroscience is fast becoming football’s gamechanger

“We all know there’s a difference between who was good at 15, 16, 17 years old and who will make it to the adult national team,” he says. “I don’t say that it’s all because of the brain, but the lack of knowledge, the lack of insights into the brains of the academy players, is part of the doubtful academy conversion race.”

Castien says he believes the mysteries of the brain in relation to the beautiful game will one day be worked out. “If I’m in a good mood, then I would say we were halfway,” he says. But as neuroscientific approaches expand within the game, they are also reinforcing techniques that have been in place for many years and may, in fact, have even become unfashionable.

“There’s lots of pushback against repetition and doing the same thing over and over again, but actually it’s really important,” says Holly Bridge, a neuroscientist and academic who is part of a team at the University of Oxford

https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...science-is-fast-becoming-football-gamechanger