Stress on soccer players: A comparison Brasil & Cuba

Abstract

Considering the lack of the psychodynamics’ of the stress situations data on high technical level soccer players in cross-cultural researches, the purpose of this study was to analyze the influence of stress factors on debilitating (distress) or facilitating (eustress) the sportive performance. The sample consisted of 44 Brazilian professional soccer players and 20 Cuban soccer players from the Under-21 national time. All the athletes were submitted to measurements of the “Stress Factors in Professional Soccer Players Inventory”(Brandão, 2000) in two languages, Portuguese and Spanish respectively. It comprises 77 items of general and real-life soccer situations. The soccer players were asked at first to respond to each of the 77 items if it has a negative, neutral or positive effect on his performance, and then to quantify the amount of the positive or negative effect on a 7-point scale, from –3 (very debilitative) to +3 (very facilitative), with the midpoint of 0 representing neutral or unimportant. The results showed significative differences between the Brazilians and Cubans where the Brazilians tended to perceive the stress situations more negatively than the Cubans. On the other hand, some situations evaluated as neutral for Brazilians were perceived as positive for the Cubans. We can conclude that the questionnaire is a rich and valuable device to assess the potentially stressful soccer situations on debilitating or facilitating the performance, that is, the test permits to examine those factors that predict debilitative and facilitative stress factors in soccer performers as related to different cultures. This knowledge is critical and should be taken into consideration when planning either practice sessions or the competitive season for professional soccer teams.