Abstract
Sports performance is a complex process that involves many factors, including ethnic and racial differences. China’s youth soccer is in a process of constant development, although information about the characteristics of its players and their methodological systems is scarce. The aim of this retrospective study was to characterize the physical fitness and the competitive performance of 722 Chinese players of three sports categories (8.0–9.9, 10.0–11.9 and 12.0–13.9 years), who were classified by their coaches as talented (n = 204) or untalented (n = 518). Players were assessed for anthropometry (body height, body mass, body mass index), lung capacity (Forced Vital Capacity), jumping performance (Squat Jump, Countermovement Jump and Abalakov tests), sprinting performance (10 m and 30 m Sprint tests), agility performance (Repeated Side-Step test) and flexibility (Sit & Reach test). A descriptive, comparative, correlational and multivariate analysis was performed. Competitive ranking was created in order to act as dependent variable in multiple linear regression analysis. Results indicate that Chinese players classified as talented have better motor performance than untalented ones. However, these differences are neither related nor determine the competitive performance of one group or the other.
Highlights
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has a policy interest in promoting and developing professional soccer [1,2]
Anthropometric outcomes (HT, BM, BMI) did not differ in practically all 722 cases between the first and second measurements, we report the maximum reliability results
The major finding of this study has been to verify the null or scarce relationship between anthropometric measures and/or physical fitness tests that coaches normally use during training sessions, and the classification of each player in a ranking based on their competitive league results as members of their respective teams
Summary
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has a policy interest in promoting and developing professional soccer [1,2]. Identifying sports talent is an exciting and complex area of sports science, due to its multidimensional nature [6,7,8,9,10] This complexity increases when competitive performance must be explained or predicted in a team sport such as soccer [11,12]. In relation to youth soccer, Hendry and colleagues [15] used a five-point scale (one = poor to five = excellent) to rate 102 elite youth players, according to their skill level Another example is the contribution of Jukic and colleagues [14], who created a questionnaire for coaches with nine items that attempted to cover, multidimensionally, the quality they attributed to each player, according to a series of technical, tactical, physical, and psychological aspects.
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