Finding a Future Star
“Natural ability without education has more often attained to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.”
– Cicero (106 BC – 43 BC)
Is this statement true? Talent Identification in sport, and more specifically youth soccer, has long been the subject of divided opinion and conflicting views. Should a player be signed based on technical ability? or attitude? or physical and physiological measurements? or a combination of these and more?.
As a young boy, it was my own dream for many years to become a professional soccer player, to play in front of thousands of fans every week, to represent my country at the highest level, to be featured on Match of the Day on a Saturday night etc. Yet I was not lucky enough to get an opportunity to achieve this goal. Every year, numbers of young, promising footballers are plucked from their local team and given a chance to secure a youth or professional contract. It is a long and competitive process that all professional clubs use to unearth the next Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo. Huge sums of money are spent trying to identify future stars, it’s a process that is constantly developing. For example, the great Real Madrid have gone as far as creating a Masters in Talent Identification and Development in Soccer, such is the demand for qualified personnel in player recruitment.
However, what are the key elements in talent identification, and what components should be considered in relation to the players themselves? Looking at some of the bigger Talent ID programmes out there, we can see that some of these companies / organisations have specific parameters with which to identify potential top-level athletes, e.g. SPARC, Sport Giants, Pitch2Podium, Girls4Gold –
- physical predictors
- sociological predictors
- physiological predictors
- psychological predictors
- personality.
In relation to one of world sports biggest Talent ID programmes, the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS), have devised a set of tests for children aged 14/15, with the top 2% taken to further lab testing. Some of these tests include vertical jump, 40m sprint, seated b’ball throw, arm span etc. Yet even with an organisation as developed as the AIS, how can they be sure their tests incorporate most / all variables in soccer or sport?
In the UK, a collaborative effort between Coerver Coaching and Coventry University has attempted to identify the physiological predictors of top soccer players, again using tests such as sprint speed, agility, lateral balance counter jump movement etc. Testing was carried out 3 times per season. Their findings indicate multiple correlations between fitness test variables amongst high-level youth players and some of these scores are equivalent to that of top level youth players from America and Portugal. This would indicate that a lot of ID programmes focus on what is measurable, and indeed the similar results suggests that this approach does produce some successful results.
Yet, not all variables are included in this testing. For example, the Relative Age Factor (RAF) has an influence on talent ID. The RAF is strikingly evident in activities that are competitive and where performance is highly correlated with age and maturity. It was theorized that the RAF arose from the consequences of grouping young boys for entry into organized sport, thereby producing a one-year age range for the participants. As size, speed, and coordination are highly correlated with age, older players within the age-group will, on average, show superior performance.
Indeed results from the Coerver Coaching studies indicates that relative age factor has an influence on talent ID. Studies such as Helsen, Van Winckel & Williams (2005) have proven that an over-representation of players born in the first quarter of the year was present at U/15 – U/18 age level at underage international tournaments. They felt players with a greater relative age were more likely to be identified as “talented” due to the likely physical advantages they have over their “younger” peers.
Pro-soccer academy is of the opinion that other factors have a huge influence on talent ID, for example education, somatotype, parental support, confidence, practice opportunities, concentration, motor skills, late developers, etc. Most, if not all of these are difficult to measure, and therefore they can impact on player development and talent ID.
So although most talent ID programmes have been designed to adhere to certain physical and physiological parameters based on research, there are still a large number of variables that can impact on a player’s development. Pure natural ability, determination, motivation etc. are all characteristics of the top players that are very hard to measure. The research that is available presently can certainly point scouts and coaches in the right direction, but there is a lot more than just physiology and measurements that should be taken into consideration when attempting to select talented players.
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