Madsen named Director of Football & Data Science for Saudi Pro League

Jes Buster Madsen, the world expert on the application of cognitive neuroscience in football, has been appointed Director of Football and Data Science for the Saudi Pro League.

The Dane has been Head of Research and Development at FC Copenhagen for the last three years. Writing on LinkedIn today, he said: “Really proud to announce that I have taken on a new role in the Saudi Pro League. I will do my best to help the League move forward towards increasing the quality of the scientific projects, data analysis and research into football science.”

Madsen appeared on Episode 57 of the TGG Podcast, which you can listen to below, where he outlined the work he has been doing on the application of cognitive neuroscience in football.

He said: “Neuroscience is very complex. When something is complex, people tend to find the most complex solution. I think the opposite way around - we should find the most simple idea and work from that. Then, maybe in 10 years, we can find a good complex solution.”

Madsen also presented at TGG Live 2024 earlier this month, revealing the research he has done in collaboration with Professor Habekost from the University of Copenhagen on integrating cognitive neuroscience and training methodology in elite football.

Afterwards, he wrote: “I never thought I would get the chance to explain ‘Reward Prediction Error’ to a crowd of industry football experts. But it happened, and I think its a sign of changing times.

“I want to sum up the presentation in three bullet points:

1. Settle for a theoretical framework of perception within your club. If you do not have a hypothesis about perception, it is almost impossible to create ideas/ practice around testing, training and scouting.
   
2. Football today is highly focused on outcomes of decisions, even though we know that many unpredictable and random factors influence the quality and consequences of outcomes. Therefore, we have had an increased focus on the variables we can control; each players perceptional preperation before making a given decision. This will sometimes give insights to the decisions made, and not only the outcomes thereof. Sometimes the preprocess is more insightful than the actual outcome.
   
3. There is no easy solution or golden bullet to integrating cognitive neuroscience within your club. Many vendors and startups might sell their solutions as such, however, the brain is highly complex, dynamic and plastic, therefore the solutions often are too. You must work from a complex viewpoint, and try to work your way down from there."