Talent Identification In Soccer Research Articles

Goldfit Soccer: A Multidimensional Model for Talent Identification of Young Soccer Players

ABSTRACT Studies have provided empirical evidence on the prognostic relevance of test batteries and the “coach’s eye” for talent identification. The aims were 1) to compare objective and subjective assessments as well as a combined soccer-specific potential index between future selected and non-selected players and 2) to evaluate the prognostic validity of a multidimensional model as a tool for talent identification in soccer. The sample was composed by 132 male players (14,5 ± 1,4 years; regional competitive level) from U13 to U17 age groups of a Brazilian soccer talent development program. Athletes completed a multidimensional test battery and were subjectively rated by their coaches for sporting potential. Players’ success was evaluated five years later and was operationalized by achieving under-20 category of the Brazilian Championship or adult professional level (success rate, 15.9%). Confirming univariate prognostic validity, future selected outperformed non-selected players regarding 20-m sprint (p = .009), agility (p = .04), countermovement jump (p = .04), sit-and-reach (p = .001), Yo-Yo IR1 (p = .001), dribbling (p < .001), perceived competence (p = .007), peaking under pressure (p = .01), confidence/motivation (p = .03), coping skills (p = .03), intangibles (p < .001) and player potential (p < .001). A combined index (objective tests, athlete’s assessments and coach’s eye) named Gold Score Soccer (GSS) showed high prognostic validity (p < .001). A binary logistic regression estimated the probability of success (yes/not) with GSS, ambidextrous and predicted age at peak height velocity as predictors. This multidimensional model named GoldFit Soccer showed high prognostic validity (sensitivity = 85.7%; specificity = 83.8%; accuracy = 84.1%; area under the ROC curve = .93 [.87–.98]). Thus, GoldFit Soccer is a valid multidimensional scientific model for talent identification in soccer.

Talent identification in soccer: The influence of technical, physical and maturity-related characteristics on a national selection process.

The present study examines the influence of technical, physical, and relative age characteristics on players selection success within the Scottish Performance School trials. Ninety adolescent players (81 males, 9 females; mean ± standard deviation: age = 11.3 ± 0.4 years, height = 149.6 ± 6.9 cm, mass 38.1 ± 4.7 kg) performed a battery of physical fitness (20m Sprint, CMJ, 5-0-5 agility test), anthropometric, and 8 small-sided games (SSG; 9v9) as part of a talent identification (TID) programme. Players technical (ball touches, time on the ball, high-speed releases) and locomotor activities (high-speed running distance, sprint distance, accelerations, and decelerations) were monitored using foot-mounted inertial measurements units during SSG's. The data was analysed using independent sample T-tests. Mann-Whitney U analyses were conducted to examine the differences between groups whose data was determined as being (non)parametric, with Cohen effect sizes applied. Successful players performed significantly better during physical tests (Effect size ± confidence limits: Left 5-0-5 = -0.89±0.13, Right 5-0-5 = -0.51±0.11), had significantly higher locomotor activities during SSG (high-intensity distance = 0.4±26.6, horizontal accelerations = 0.59±1.19) and significantly higher technical outputs during SSG (touches = 0.71±6.1, releases = 0.49±2.5, high-speed releases = 0.59±2.7, time on the ball = 0.52±3.4) compared to unsuccessful players. Successful players had significantly higher locomotor activities and technical outputs during SSG than their unsuccessful counterparts. Monitoring technical and locomotor activities during SSG may compliment or replace physical testing batteries for assessing TID processes in soccer.

Talent identification in soccer using a one-class support vector machine

Abstract Identifying potential future elite athletes is important in many sporting events. The successful identification of potential future elite athletes at an early age would help to provide high-quality coaching and training environments in which to optimize their development. However, a large variety of different skills and qualities are needed to succeed in elite sports, making talent identification generally a complex and multifaceted problem. Due to the rarity of elite athletes, datasets are inherently imbalanced, making classical statistical inference difficult. Therefore, we approach talent identification as an anomaly detection problem. We trained a nonlinear one-class support vector machine (one-class SVM) on a dataset (N=951) collected from 14-year-old junior soccer players to detect potential future elite players. The mean area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC-ROC) over the tested hyperparameter combinations was 0.763 (std 0.007). The most accurate model was obtained when physical tests, measuring, for example, technical skills, speed, and agility, were used. According to our results, the proposed approach could be useful to support decision-makers in the process of talent identification.

The Identification of Talent in Soccer a Brief Review

In this review, we intended to identify and provide the most important overview of research in talent identification in soccer and highlighting information for those who are interested into future research in this field. Some peer-reviewed empirical articles were collected and analyzed. The literature reveals considerable evidence demonstrating that 8 indicators must be taken into consideration in talent assessment: maturation, physiological abilities, technical skills, tactical skills, psychosocial attributes, deliberate practice, genetic factors and the context. It seems that the traditional trend of selecting young players based on physical, technical, psychological, cognitive and sociological attributes must be completed with another several factors: perceptual and tactical skills and abilities, genetics.

Multivariate analyses of individual variation in soccer skill as a tool for talent identification and development: utilising evolutionary theory in sports science

ABSTRACTThe development of a comprehensive protocol for quantifying soccer-specific skill could markedly improve both talent identification and development. Surprisingly, most protocols for talent identification in soccer still focus on the more generic athletic attributes of team sports, such as speed, strength, agility and endurance, rather than on a player’s technical skills. We used a multivariate methodology borrowed from evolutionary analyses of adaptation to develop our quantitative assessment of individual soccer-specific skill. We tested the performance of 40 individual academy-level players in eight different soccer-specific tasks across an age range of 13–18 years old. We first quantified the repeatability of each skill performance then explored the effects of age on soccer-specific skill, correlations between each of the pairs of skill tasks independent of age, and finally developed an individual metric of overall skill performance that could be easily used by coaches. All of our measured traits were highly repeatable when assessed over a short period and we found that an individual’s overall skill – as well as their performance in their best task – was strongly positively correlated with age. Most importantly, our study established a simple but comprehensive methodology for assessing skill performance in soccer players, thus allowing coaches to rapidly assess the relative abilities of their players, identify promising youths and work on eliminating skill deficits in players.

ISports: A web-oriented expert system for talent identification in soccer

Nowadays soccer is the most practiced sport in the world and moves a multimillionaire market. Therefore, a club that is able to recruit and develop talented players to theirs fullest potential has a lot of advantages and economic benefits. However, in most clubs the players are selected through scouts and coaches recommendation, with predictive success based mostly on intuition than other objective criteria. In addition, it is known that talent development and identification is a multifactorial process involving many characteristics. To this end, this paper proposes the creation of performance indicators based on multivariate statistical analysis. Usual principal components and factor analysis are performed to construct physical, technical and general score and copula modeling is proposed to create the consistency index, which generalizes the Z score method. With these indicators, a web-oriented expert system for analyzing sport data in real time via R software is proposed as a powerful tool for talent identification in soccer. This system, the so called iSports, allows the monitoring and continuous comparison of athletes in a simple and efficient way, taking into account essentials aspects, as well as identifying candidate talented that have above the average performance, that is, who stand out from the studied population of soccer players. In order to promote and popularize the access of information and the statistical science applied in the sports context, the iSports system can be used in any training center of the country, impacting the increase of knowledge of the athletes in training phase at any school, city or region.

INFLUENCE OF BODY COMPOSITION ON VERTICAL JUMP PERFORMANCE ACCORDING WITH THE AGE AND THE PLAYING POSITION IN FOOTBALL PLAYERS

body composition and vertical jump are two factors in the multifactorial approach to talent identification in soccer with implication on performance monitorization and injury rehabilitation. The aim of this study was to describe the anthropometric attributes and vertical jump performance in young soccer players based on their playing position. four hundred and thirty-four young soccer players from 7 to 25 years (13.4 ± 3.45 yrs; 156 ± 17 cm; 47.9 ± 15.4 kg), who trained 3 days/week for 1.5 hours/ day, took part in the study. All were split up based on their age or soccer category (U9, U11, U13, U15, U17, U25) and playing position (goalkeeper, defenders, midfielders and forwards). Then, body composition was measure using the anthropometric method and vertical jump performance was analysed by three vertical jump test Squat Jump (SJ), Counter-movement Jump (CMJ) and Abalakov Jump (CMJA). significant differences among playing positions were mainly detected in categories U13, U15 and U25. Goalkeepers from U13 category reported a significantly higher fat free mass, appendicular lean body mass, area of the thigh and area of the calf (P < 0.05). While, defenders from U25 category showed a significantly greater vertical jump performance compared to midfielders for SJ, midfielders and forwards for CMJ and all playing position for CMJA (P < 0.05). in addition to biological age and muscle mass development, playing position should be taken into consideration as a relevant variable in the utilization of body composition and vertical jump performance as talent detection factors.

Talent Identification in Soccer: The Role of Maturity Status on Physical, Physiological and Technical Characteristics

The purpose of this paper is to provide a review around talent identification in soccer using physiological and technical testing procedures, and to summarise the issues associated with this process. The current research in soccer talent identification, among other sports, demonstrates a systematic bias in selection towards players born early in the year (i.e., relative age effect) and early maturers. From the studies investigating the physiological (e.g., power) and technical (e.g., dribbling) characteristics of players of different maturity status, early maturers had the tendency to perform better in these tests and therefore were likely to be more influential on the game and be recognised as more talented. When considering the current level of play and future success, elite youth and future professional players scored better in physiological and technical testing than recreational youth and future non-professional players, independently of maturity status. However, these testing procedures were not sensitive enough to distinguish youth elite from sub-elite or future national team from professional club players. Collectively, these studies demonstrated the need to use estimates of maturity status and subsequent appropriate analysis of data obtained from physiological and technical testing. When maturity is taken into account, these testing procedures can provide an indication of responsiveness to training load in youth players and an evaluation of potential to become a successful soccer player. However, these testing procedures should not be used as a marker of selection before full maturity is attainted and should be part of a multidimensional approach of talent identification considering the importance of other facets of the game at the highest level (e.g., perceptive-cognitive skills).

Características morfo-funcionales y motoras en jóvenes futbolistas como criterio de orientación y selección deportiva

Se realizó un estudio descriptivo, comparativo y transversal para identificar características morfo-funcionales y motoras de 193 futbolistas (14-20 años) de Millonarios (Bogotá) y América (Cali), con el fin de establecer criterios de orientación y selección deportiva. Se conformaron tres grupos: G1 (n=52) nacidos entre 1991 – 1990; G2 (n=72) entre 1992 - 1993 y G3 (n=69) entre 1994 – 1995.&#x0D; El componente morfológico evaluó: dimen­siones corporales totales, somatotipo (Heath-Carter) y composición corporal (Mateigka). Para el componente motor se valoró test de Leger, Sprint (Bangsbo), salto largo, Wells, y velocidad (20-30-50 metros). El componente funcional se estableció con medición indirecta del VO2 máx, registro de FC (en reposo, para cada escalón del test de Leger y la inicial y final en cada repetición del test de Sprint).&#x0D; Los jugadores americanos presentaron un mejor desempeño en componente morfológico, con promedios superiores en todas las variables. Los componentes motor y funcional evidencian algunas diferencias en variables relacionadas con mecanismo anaeróbico a favor de América, mientras que el aeróbico sólo fue superior en G3 a favor de Millonarios.

Talent identification in soccer

Some studies showed that most professional soccer players were born on the same date. The aim of this study was to investigate talent identification among players of the 2006 FIFA...

A multidisciplinary approach to talent identification in soccer

The requirements for soccer play are multifactorial and distinguishing characteristics of elite players can be investigated using multivariate analysis. The aim of the present study was to apply a comprehensive test battery to young players with a view to distinguishing between elite and sub-elite groups on the basis of performance on test items. Thirty-one (16 elite, 15 sub-elite) young players matched for chronological age (15-16 years) and body size were studied. Test items included anthropometric ( n = 15), physiological ( n = 8), psychological ( n = 3) and soccer-specific skills ( n = 2) tests. Variables were split into separate groups according to somatotype, body composition, body size, speed, endurance, performance measures, technical skill, anticipation, anxiety and task and ego orientation for purposes of univariate and multivariate analysis of variance and stepwise discriminant function analysis.The most discriminating of the measures were agility, sprint time, ego orientation and anticipation skill. The elite players were also significantly leaner, possessed more aerobic power (9.0 - 1.7 vs 55.5 - 3.8 ml·kg -1 ·min -1 ) and were more tolerant of fatigue ( P ≪ 0.05). They were also better at dribbling the ball, but not shooting. We conclude that the test battery used may be useful in establishing baseline reference data for young players being selected onto specialized development programmes.

Psychological characteristics and talent identification in soccer

I review research on psychological characteristics and sports performance and examine the literature on talent identification with particular reference to soccer to derive implications for the use of psychological variables in the talent identification and development process. Although the many cross-sectional studies of psychological characteristics and performance in all football codes conducted over the last 30 years have revealed no clear patterns, studies of both general inventories and specific variables are still being conducted. Reports on talent identification in all codes have increased in recent years, but most are descriptive in nature. In this review, I suggest that research on systematic expert observation has potential asa practical approach, but more studies of this type are needed.Considering the examination of specific psychological variables, only a solitary investigation of creativity in adolescents has shown promise. Further research on creativity and talent identification is required to replicate the positive results found in that study. In summarizing the research on psychological characteristics and talent identification, I conclude that cross-sectional research on adults cannot be extrapolated for use in talent identification with adolescents.I propose that resources would be more effectively used in the provision of psychological skills training for adolescent soccer players, pending more sophisticated research on a wider range of psychological variables. It is recommended that longitudinal or quasi-longitudinal research is essential to determine whether the same psychological variables are important for outstanding performance throughout the process of development and whether psychological variables measured during adolescence can predict outstanding performance in adulthood.