Cristiano Ronaldo news: Juventus ace seems to be immune to pressure while Neymar's performance crumbles under it, claims new research

What's the story?

Juventus ace Cristiano Ronaldo has been found out to be 'immune' to the immense pressure of games while PSG star Neymar is claimed to succumb to the stress, according to a research conducted by KU Leuven (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) and data intelligence company SciSports.

In their study, the researchers crunched the data from over 7000 professional football matches in 7 competitions to see how professional football players perform under pressure.

With millions of dollars spent on players in this cash-rich era of football, it is important to gauge which players earn their money by performing at their best when the stakes are highest.

In case you didn't know...

Ronaldo, who joined Juventus last summer in a club record transfer deal, failed to open his account for the Bianconeri in his first three Serie A matches.

But since scoring his first goal in the Black and White jersey, the Portuguese talisman has overcome the initial pressure of settling in with his new team and is now the leading goalscorer for the Old Lady in the league.

Mental pressure is a factor that has already been extensively studied in sports such as baseball and basketball in the USA, but in football not data is available as such.

The heart of the matter...

It is no news that footballers have to be in a good physical state to compete at their highest level but at the same time, players need to keep a cool head during a match.

Now researchers from KU Leuven, one of the most prestigious European universities, have studied the effect of pressure on player's performances and the results show that Ronaldo is immune to stress while Neymar falters under it.

How players react under pressure. (Source: KU Leuven News)

As the figure shows, Manchester City striker Sergio Aguero comes out to be the best performing player under stress.

Professor Jesse Davis of the Department of Computer Science said

“Mental pressure has already been extensively studied in sports such as baseball and basketball, but in football, this is uncharted territory.”

SciSports researcher Lotte Bransen highlighted the importance of their model, by saying that it will help clubs make well-informed decisions before splashing millions on a player. He added:

“If a club is willing to pay millions for a new player, it's important to know how immune to stress this player is."

The researchers illustrated how the mental pressure evolves during the season, in this case for the English club Everton

What's next?

The research team will present their research in full at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in Boston on March 1.