Identifying technical, physiological, tactical and psychological characteristics that contribute to career progression in soccer

Abstract

This study sought to examine which technical, physiological, tactical and psychological characteristics at age 15 years contribute to successful soccer performance at age 19 years. Participants were male soccer players (n ¼ 114; mean age 15.4 AE 0.3 years), divided into elite and sub-elite groups based on their performance level at age 19 years. Technical, physiological, tactical and psychological characteristics were recorded when players were 15-year olds. Binary logistic regression analysis showed that performance level at age 19 was clearly associated with technical skills of passing and centering as well as agility and motivation levels recorded at age 15 years. These results extend our understanding of career progression in youth soccer and highlight the multidimensional nature of talent development processes in soccer. Moreover, it seems crucial that coaching support should be devoted to the development of passing and centering skills, agility and motivation in the development of youth players.

Talent selection in youth football: Technical skills rather than general motor performance predict future player status of football talents

“…In their fundamental work on these approaches, Williams and Reilly (2000) suggested more than 25 potential predictors of talent in football and grouped this "shopping list of key criteria" (p. 658) into sociological, physical, physiological, and psychological dimensions. This pioneering work had significant impact and several researchers have subsequently executed multidimensional work on talent in football (Figueiredo, Gonçalves, Coelho-e-Silva, & Malina, 2009a;Forsman, Blomqvist, Davids, Liukkonen, & Konttinen, 2016;Huijgen, Elferink-Gemser, Lemmink, & Visscher, 2014;Vaeyens et al, 2006;. However, there has been no scientific study or practical implementation that has integrated all of the suggested predictors from the work of Williams and Reilly (2000).…”

“…In general, motor performance has been one of the most considered predictors within talent research in youth football and is also frequently used by practitioners in the field (Höner, Leyhr, & Kelava, 2017;Sarmento, Anguera, Pereira, & Araújo, 2018). Whilst the overall value of motor performance for talent selection is not doubted, it is unclear whether physiologically driven general motor performance (GMP) capacities (e.g., speed, endurance, vertical jump) or domain-specific motor performance (SMP) capacities (i.e., technical skills) best predict future performance levels of young football players (Dodd & Newans, 2018;Forsman et al, 2016;Gonaus & Müller, 2012;Höner et al, 2017;Murr, Raabe, & Höner, 2017). In particular, the prognostic validity of GMP for long-term predictions from childhood or early adolescence has been vigorously questioned due to lower specificity of the task and development-related influences such as biological maturation and relative age, which may at least influence strength and speed abilities (Lidor, Côté, & Hackfort, 2009;Malina, Cumming, Coelho-e-Silva, & Figueiredo, 2017;Müller, Gonaus, Perner, Müller, & Raschner, 2017;Romann, Rössler, Javet, & Faude, 2018).…”

“…As Murr, Feichtinger, Larkin, O'Connor, and Höner (2018) showed in their review, only the studies of two working groups can report on longterm prognostic validities (i.e., more than four years) of both GMP and SMP. Forsman et al (2016) presented data from Finnish U14 players, which were used to predict player status at U19 level (elite vs. sub-elite, n = 114). SMP (dribbling and passing, passing and centering; d mean = 0.73) and GMP (30m sprint, agility, vertical jump, and endurance; d mean = 0.67) separated groups with similar strong effect sizes on average.…”

Talent development environment in a professional football club in Norway

“…And even though scouting still is an important part of most professional club's development programs, the dropout rate is high (Güllich, 2014). So despite the fact that earlier research have found differences between selected and nonselected players on skills such as physiological skills (Huijgen, Elferink-Gemser, Lemmink, & Visscher, 2014), dribbling and ball control (Figueiredo, Goncalves, Coelho e Silva, & Malina, 2009), and psychological skills such as motivation (Forsman, Blomqvist, Davids, Liukkonen, & Konttinen, 2016) and self-referential cognitions (Höner & Feichtinger, 2016), they are less successful in predicting which players are going to reach professional football. Since Bloom (1985) introduced his model of talent development, there has been introduced a range of models trying to explain talent development processes (Gulbin, Croser, Morley, & Weissensteiner, 2013).…”

“…Even so, the importance of developing local talented players is also an important feature for most clubs, even though some clubs are more successful on that matter. Earlier studies have found differences between selected and non-selected players in areas such as physiological skills (Huijgen, Elferink-Gemser, Lemmink, & Visscher, 2014), dribbling and ball control (Figueiredo, Goncalves, Coelho e Silva, & Malina, 2009), and psychological skills such as motivation (Forsman, Blomqvist, Davids, Liukkonen, & Konttinen, 2016) and selfreferential cognitions (Höner & Feichtinger, 2016). Even though many clubs select the most talented players at an early age, the high dropout rate (Güllich, 2014) indicates the challenges of identifying the future professional players early on.…”