Reflections on Dermatology: Past, Present, and FutureEdited by Leonard N. Hoenig, MDRole of tattoos in football: Behavioral patterns and success—analysis of the FIFA World Cup 2018
Introduction
In recent years, there has been an increase in the number of individuals with tattoos, with a prevalence of 10% to 30% in the general population of industrialized countries.1,2 This trend could also be observed among professional football (in the United States referred to as soccer) players.3,4 Epidemiologic studies have indicated that individuals with tattoos are more extroverted, aggressive, rebellious, and more likely to take risks, but also more depressed and anxious than individuals with no tattoos2,[5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10]; however, it is largely unknown whether such personality traits affect their performance on the pitch, that is, the rate of goal success but also the number of cards received. The International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) World Cups can be regarded as having quite standardized test conditions, when the performance patterns of these elite football players are compared, showing little variability between matches in the same tournament. The performance of players with and without tattoos in the FIFA World Cup 2018 has been compared in two studies, so far. At the FIFA World Cup 2018, the goal success rate of penalty takers with tattoos was found to be slightly higher than that of penalty takers with no tattoos.4 A study3 reported that neither the number of scorers nor the number of yellow and red cards differed between players with and without tattoos; however, several important factors, such as the time played, shots on target, rate of goal success, and fouls won and conceded, have not yet been taken into consideration.3 Our goal, therefore, was to assess these endpoints to measure behavioral patterns and success of players with tattoos in comparison to players without tattoos during the FIFA World Cup 2018.
Section snippets
Methods
In this cross-sectional study, descriptive statistics of each player, including age, country, position on the field, minutes played, disciplines (fouls won or conceded, yellow and red cards), shots on target, and goals scored, were retrieved from www.mykhel.com, a sports portal providing in-depth statistical information. The following search strategy was used to identify the tattoos of each player using Google Images (Alphabet Inc, Mountain View, CA, USA): “name of the player” + “tattoo” +
Statistical analysis
Stata 15 (StataCorp LLC, College Station, TX, USA) was used to perform the statistical analysis. The unpaired, two-sample t test was used to compare the mean age of the cohort and the nonparametric Mann-Whitney U test for comparison of the ordinal variables (minutes played, number of cards, fouls conceded or won, shots on target and goals), because they were not normally distributed. A value of P < .05 was regarded as significant.
Results
In the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, 32 teams from 5 different continents and a total of 736 players, with a mean age of 27.9 ± 4 years, participated in the tournament. Of the 736 players, 241 (32.7%) had at least one tattoo. Of all players with tattoos, 97.1% had at least one tattoo on their arms (Figure 1). South American teams had the highest proportion of players with tattoos (53.5%), followed by Oceania (39.1%) and Europe (36%) (Figure 2). African and Asian teams each had 8.7% of players
Discussion
Epidemiologic studies indicated that people with tattoos differ from those without tattoos with regard to certain personality traits, such as aggressiveness, extroversion, and risk-taking behavior.2,[5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10] There is little evidence as to whether these personality traits translate into differences in performance in world-class sport athletes and, ultimately, whether wearing tattoos confers an advantage or disadvantage in a competitive setting among athletes.
In this cohort,
Conclusions
This study showed that football players with and without tattoos differed in their behavioral patterns on the pitch. Players with tattoos were more commonly involved in fouls and received more cards than players without tattoos. Players with tattoos were more commonly observed in the forward field positions and played longer. It seems plausible that players with tattoos have more pronounced aggressive, extroverted, risk-taking, and dominant behavior; these traits are similarly mirrored in
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
Simon Herger, MD, Simon Schwegler, MD, Gabriel Vujic, MD, Zita Rose Manjaly Thomas, MD, Alexander Navarini, MD, Mohamad Goldust, MD, Martin Kassir, MD, and Hassan Galadari, MD, contributed to the study.
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