From entry to elite: The relative age effect in the Australian football talent pathway

Tribolet, Rhys; Watsford, Mark L.; Coutts, Aaron J.; Smith, Chris; Fransen, Job

doi:10.1016/j.jsams.2018.12.014

Cited by 29 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…The latter intimates that developmental advantages are gained through competing with relatively older and/or earlier maturing peers, which may include psychological effects 47 and compensation in technical skills 49 . In contrast, more recent evidence indicates that relatively older players within Australian football have long-term career advantages, which may be attributed to developmental opportunities gained from enhanced exposure from a young age 50 . Unfortunately, it was beyond the scope of this study to investigate this notion further, though future research that examines developmental opportunities for both relatively older and younger players in a longitudinal manner would be useful.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

The influence of birth quartile, maturation, anthropometry and physical performances on player retention: Observations from an elite football academy

Patel

Nevill

Smith

et al. 2020

International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching

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Understanding the factors that influence player retention within elite youth football can be used to enhance current practices. This study investigated an English Category 1 academy to determine if birth quartile, somatic maturity, anthropometric and physical performance characteristics are associated with player retention across the developmental pathway. Birth dates of 355 elite players from U11 to U21 groups were categorised into birth quartiles and logistic regression (odds ratio) analysis was used to determine differences in retention. Multilevel modelling compared somatic maturity, anthropometry, countermovement jump, sprint time (10 and 30 m), agility T-test, Yo-Yo Intermittent Recovery Level 1 or 2 performance between retained and dropout players. Logistic regression (odds ratio) analysis revealed no significant differences between birth quartiles for the likelihood of being retained across age groups. Multilevel modelling revealed that retained players were typically older, advanced in maturity, and superior in body size and physical performances compared to dropouts, with small to medium effect sizes typically observed. This study indicates that within a highly selective cohort of young football players, somatic maturity, anthropometric and physical performance characteristics, but not birth quartile, distinguish individuals that are subsequently retained or dropout in an age group dependent manner. Youth football organisations should seek to implement multidisciplinary and dynamic talent selection and retention strategies in order to prevent the inappropriate discrimination and loss of talented young players.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

The influence of birth quartile, maturation, anthropometry and physical performances on player retention: Observations from an elite football academy

Patel

Nevill

Smith

et al. 2020

International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching

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show abstract

“…A strong RAE was detected in footballers between 6 and 18 years old in higher and intermediate expertise teams, but not in low expertise teams [25]. In Australian footballers, the RAE was documented in ages between 10–12 years and continued into senior professional competition [26]. The same observation was found in Spain, where the RAE has been increasing during recent years in youth elite competition [27], and continues into elite sports [28].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…The classical statistical procedure for the study of the RAE is to test for statistically significant differences between the number of athletes born in any of the four quarters of the year based on the use of a chi-square test to compare an expected uniform distribution [12, 13, 17, 18, 20, 25, 26, 28, 29, 32, 33] or a nonuniform excepted distribution [17, 18, 34]. In some cases, for example, when the study sample is small, Fisher’s exact test is used [17].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A new approach to study the relative age effect with the use of additive logistic regression models: A case of study of FIFA football tournaments (1908-2012)

García¹,

Matabuena²,

Montero-Seoane³

et al. 2019

PLoS ONE

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The relative age effect plays an important role in the pursuit of excellence, providing advantage to athletes born at the beginning of the year or near the cut-off date. This phenomenon has been observed in areas such as sports, education or business. Traditionally, the chi-square test has been used to analyze whether there are statistically significant differences in the distribution of births in each of the four quarters of the year. However, this approach is limited, focusing only on the analysis of the response variable, without taking into account the effect of a set of predictive variables. In this paper a new approach is proposed to study the relative age effect with the use of a logistic regression additive model. The new method has been evaluated with a sample of 21,639 players involved in football tournaments organized by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) between 1908 and 2012. New conclusions have been established that the relative age effect exists regarding player age and the year of the competition in male FIFA competitions and its effect is dynamic and complex.

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“…The analysis confirmed that the RAE had an impact in most sports, both on an individual level and on a team level: for every two subjects born in the last quartile of an age group, more than three of the first quartile of the same age group participated in the same sporting context. The RAE appears to have a large impact on the selection processes associated with TID systems in team sports such as ice hockey [10], basketball [11,12], football [13][14][15], rugby [16], Australian football [17], and handball [18,19]. However, recent research in women´s sports has reported more diverse findings, and the impact of the RAE in these seems to be less extensive [20].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The relationship between the relative age effect and performance among athletes in World Handball Championships

et al. 2020

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From entry to elite: The relative age effect in the Australian football talent pathway

Cited by 29 publications

References 22 publications

The influence of birth quartile, maturation, anthropometry and physical performances on player retention: Observations from an elite football academy

The influence of birth quartile, maturation, anthropometry and physical performances on player retention: Observations from an elite football academy

A new approach to study the relative age effect with the use of additive logistic regression models: A case of study of FIFA football tournaments (1908-2012)

The relationship between the relative age effect and performance among athletes in World Handball Championships

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