Systematizing coaches’ ‘eye for talent': Player assessments based on expert coaches’ subjective talent criteria in top-level youth soccer

Abstract

Although talent selection in professional soccer mainly relies on the subjective judgment of scouts and coaches, little is known to date about top-level soccer coaches' conceptions of talent. Drawing on a constructivist approach, this mixed method study intends to give an in-depth insight into coaches' subjective talent criteria and to investigate the validity and reliability of their player assessments based on these criteria. Five national youth soccer coaches were examined using semistructured inductive interviews and the repertory grid technique. The results reveal experienced soccer coaches' subjective talent criteria and indicate the multidimensional nature of their concepts of talent. There is a high correlation (À.57 r s À.81) between the coaches' assessment of their players based on their own talent criteria and their previous evaluation of these players' overall potential, indicating criterion validity. Repeated evaluations of the players according to a coach's talent criteria display an adequate test-retest reliability over a period of 10 weeks.

“It’s Important, but It’s Not Everything”: Practitioners’ Use, Analysis and Perceptions of Fitness Testing in Academy Rugby League

“…It’s with your eyes really, isn’t it?”. This data is similar to findings in football where coaches’ subjective ratings of performance were valid and reliable at rating players’ potential [ 54 , 55 ]. Moreover, due to the multifactorial nature of rugby league, coaches routinely identified that objective performance measurements often do not effectively assess athlete’s sporting ability.…”

Waste Reduction Strategies: Factors Affecting Talent Wastage and the Efficacy of Talent Selection in Sport

“…Perhaps the greatest influences affecting the selection of athletes are the preferences, beliefs and/or goals of the talent selector (Christensen, 2009;Jokuschies et al, 2017). A talent selector's lived experiences along with the education and environment he/she was exposed to (known as tacit knowledge), are likely to influence the types of athletes selected (Cushion and Jones, 2006;Christensen, 2009;Lund and Söderström, 2017).…”

“…Ericsson and Kintsch (1995) proposed skilled individuals have complex task-specific encoding skills and memory retrieval structures that differ from less-skilled individuals. However, further research is required to better understand what the "coaches' eye" entails and its relative strengths and weaknesses in talent selection decisions (Williams and Reilly, 2000;Andersson et al, 2005;Vaeyens et al, 2008;Jokuschies et al, 2017).…”

Achievement-Motivated Behavior in Individual Sports (AMBIS-I)—Coach Rating Scale

“…As a result of (a) the empirical research pointing to the positive association between achievement motivation and performance, and (b), the experiences from sporting practice supporting that motivational characteristics are highly valued by coaches (Christensen, 2009;Jokuschies, Gut, & Conzelmann, 2017), as well as by elite athletes and their parents (MacNamara et al, 2010), the assessment of achievement motivation was integrated in multidimensional talent identification programs (TID; cf. Vaeyens, Lenoir, Williams, & Philippaerts, 2008;Germany: Feichtinger & Höner, 2014;Switzerland: Fuchslocher, Romann, Rüdisüli, Birrer, & Hollenstein, 2011).…”

“…[and] are able to make inter-individual comparisons and use this knowledge to evaluate and predict a player's current and future potential" (Musculus & Lobinger, 2018, p. 2). In this way, talent characteristics identified by coaches seem to be relevant for the prognosis of future achievements (Jokuschies et al, 2017). Therefore, a suitable new tool for assessing achievement motivation in the contextofselectiondecisions insports should consequentially be based on coaches' ratings of achievement-motivated behavior.…”