14 DAY TRIAL // According to a new research whose findings were published in the Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, the brains of professional football players are highly active when the individual finds himself in game circumstances.
Furthermore, it appears that this particular category of athletes have rather impressive mental skills, meaning that it takes them very little time to predict their opponent's next move and figure out a way to keep things going in their favor.
It often happens that football players try to play mind tricks on their opponents by making them believe that they are about to send the ball flying in one direction when in fact they are readying themselves to kick it the opposite way.
With the help of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI, for short), the brain researchers in charge of carrying out this study managed to determine that some players are better at pinning down such mind tricks than others are, Live Science explains.
As was to be expected, the players capable of such achievements were professional and not inexperienced players, the same source informs us.
Apparently, the researchers who helped bring forth these new insights into how the minds of expert athletes work are quite confident that, at one point in the not so distant future, their findings will help develop training sessions which specifically target the players' brains.
“Our neuroimaging data clearly shows greater activation of motor and related structures in the brains of expert footballers, compared to novices, when taking part in a football-related anticipation task. I can see top teams employing neuroscientists in the future,” lead author Daniel Bishop told members of the press.
“We believe this greater level of neural activity is something that can be developed through high-quality training, so the next step will be to look at how the brain can be trained over time to anticipate the moves of opponents,” the researcher explained in another statement.