Evidence map›Paper›PMID 30387071›Full record

ArticleSports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.)2019

Mental Fatigue in Football: Is it Time to Shift the Goalposts? An Evaluation of the Current Methodology.

Chris J Thompson, Job Fransen, Sabrina Skorski, Mitchell R Smith, Tim Meyer, Steve Barrett, Aaron J Coutts

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In one paragraph

Article in Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.), 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
30citing papers in PubMed, 5 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

30 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.

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  8. Mental fatigue in football: methodology and experimental protocol.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2026
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

7 authors.

Chris J ThompsonInstitute of Sport and Preventive Medicine, Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany. chris.thompson@uni-saarland.de.ORCID 0000-0001-5333-3616
Job FransenSport and Exercise Discipline Group, Faculty of Health, University of Technology Sydney, Moore Park, NSW, Australia.ORCID 0000-0003-3355-1848
Sabrina SkorskiInstitute of Sport and Preventive Medicine, Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany.ORCID 0000-0001-8449-6872
Mitchell R SmithExercise and Sports Science, Faculty of Science, University of Newcastle, Ourimbah, NSW, Australia.ORCID 0000-0002-8168-5405
Tim MeyerInstitute of Sport and Preventive Medicine, Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany.
Steve BarrettSports Medicine and Science Department, Hull City FC, Kingston upon Hull, UK.ORCID 0000-0002-6751-9937
Aaron J CouttsSport and Exercise Discipline Group, Faculty of Health, University of Technology Sydney, Moore Park, NSW, Australia.ORCID 0000-0002-1782-7691

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Research in football for a long time has focused on the physical nature of fatigue as opposed to its mental aspects. However, since 2016, six original articles have investigated the effects of induced mental fatigue in football on isolated physical, skill and decision-making performance tests, along with physical, technical and tactical performance outcomes in small-sided games. Whilst these studies have overall shown a negative impact of mental fatigue on task performance, this current opinion aims to critically examine the methodological approach to this problem, most notably the lack of ecological validity when inducing mental fatigue and the present approach to measuring mental fatigue using visual analogue scales (VAS). It is suggested that future research on mental fatigue in football may benefit from the use of surveys/interviews to understand the true cognitive demands of elite football players. Additionally, future research should aim to reduce the reliance on using VAS to measure mental fatigue as results from this tool may be confounded by several response biases. In conclusion, this article highlights the need for mentally fatiguing tasks that adequately represent football-associated mental fatigue and assessments of mental fatigue that minimise the confounding effect of response bias.

Indexed as

Mental FatigueAthletic PerformanceBiasBiomedical ResearchCognitionDecision MakingHumansNeuropsychological TestsSoccerTask Performance and AnalysisVisual Analog Scale

Identifiers

PMID30387071

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.