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Talent IdentIification, Scouting and Athlete Development Part 2

Demands Of Youth Football

We briefly evaluated the demands of adult football in our previous post “Workload Management”.   So how much do these demands change in children and young people?

How much does knowing these requirements help us in talent identification?  In this part of our article, we’ll cover this.

The main goal in youth football is to enable participants to learn basic motor skills. It is aimed to train the participants by providing match conditions in order to develop both their physical skills and their sports-specific skills by contacting the ball frequently.

These conditions are provided by the modification of adult football and a gradual learning environment is created for the participants. In this process, 11 vs 11 match is the last step of this gradual learning.

The most important task for the trainers here is to understand when the participants are ready for the transition to this level.

The factors that make up this competence; understanding and reading the game correctly, reaching physical competence and developing the correct technical and tactical skills. At the same time, maximizing the communication of the players in the game plays a very important role in bringing the player to the standard football level.

Physiological demands of youth football are not much different from adult football. The main difference is that the distance covered during the match is less in youth football than in adult football.

According to the studies, the distance covered in half-hour periods in a competitive youth football tournament from the age of 12 to the age of 15 was determined as approximately 6 and 6.5 kilometres.

International level U15 players are experiencing a significant decline at this distance, as in adult football, in the second halves. In addition, high-intensity activity based on speeds above 13 kilometres per hour is frequently seen in lower age groups as well.

At the same time, it was determined that endurance running took a very important place during the match, which once again showed the importance of aerobic training in the lower age groups.

In a study conducted by Mendez-Villanueva in 2013, it was determined that aerobic fitness level is related to age as well as the player’s position. In addition to these studies, this information was reinforced with studies using various technological measurement methods such as GPS.

In a study conducted by Martin Buchheit in 2013, it was determined that the tactical requirements of the game and the role of the player also play an important role in the activities of the game, regardless of the physical capacity of the player.

So, what are the other factors that affect the performance of the players?

UNDERSTANDING FACTORS THAT DETERMINE PERFORMANCE WHILE IDENTIFYING AND DEVELOPING PLAYER

 Understanding the game’s demands also provides us with an understanding of the factors that need to be done to maximize the player’s performance.

So, what are the factors underlying the targeted performance maximization while analyzing the player and ensuring the development of the player?

In this part of our article, we will examine the factors underlying sportive performance in lower age groups. These factors are not easy to understand because football is a complex sport and involves a lot of physical activity. At the same time, the criterion based on when evaluating performance in football is a big question mark.

More running distance, having a higher percentage of position, higher capacity to run in a match? Sports scientists have applied numerous studies on this subject and have tried to come up with many important analyzes.

As a result of these studies and the emergence of technological measurement methods, various sports performance evaluation systems have started to be used. You can see the most common and most used of these in the table below.

Fitness Component Evaluation Method
Aerobic Endurance Yo-Yo Intermittent Endurance Test*
Aerobic Endurance Beep Test
Anaerobic Endurance Sprint Test
Agility Illinois Agility Run Test
Balance Standing Stork Test
Body Composition Hydsrostatic Weighing (most reliable)
Coordination Hand-eye or foot-eye coordination
Psychological Sports Competiton Anxiety Test

Talent IdentIification, Scouting and Athlete Development Part 2

* Yo-Yo Intermittent Endurance Test

In the measurements and studies using these tests, especially the aerobic endurance test which is the Yo-Yo Intermittent Endurance Test and the agility test, have been the methods of determining the elite levels in both men’s and women’s football.

In these tests, aerobic endurance test was decisive in 15 and 16 age groups, while anaerobic endurance tests were determinant in 13 and 14 age groups.

“Agility and soccer specific intermittent endurance are the major factors that stress sex and age differences among soccer players.”  Strudwick, T. (2016). Soccer Science (First ed.). Human Kinetics, Inc.

Football is a sport that includes repeated sprinting. In this context, it is of great importance that the recovery time after high-speed sprinting is short.

According to the result of a study conducted in a Spanish club on this subject, repetitive sprinting increases during the maturation of an athlete who trains at high capacity. It has also been proven that these factors are associated with age, as well as the actor’s physical character and glycolytic potential.

In this context, while there is a significant improvement in the process of performing repetitive sprints in players from 11 to 15 years of age, this ability reaches its peak from the age of 15 to the age of 18.

While ensuring the development of repetitive sprints during these ages, care should also be taken to develop agility and explosive leg strength. Because it has been proven by research that these are seriously related to sprinting.

GAME-SPECIFIC PERFORMANCE EVALUATION METHOD: SMALL SIDED GAMES

Small-sided games are training and skill learning method that has entered the football literature shortly as SSG. This method is used frequently from lower age groups to professional elite football and plays a very important role in improving the physical capacity of the players.

In recent research, it has been proven that SSGs can be an important talent identification and performance measurement method. Unlike the above measurement techniques, SSGs significantly measure and improve the technical and tactical skills as well as the physical capacity of the player.

In this part of our article, we will evaluate how these games are used for performance measurement.

Small-Sided Games is a type of training where the field is divided into small parts and the team trains in groups with various technical and tactical games.

Each divided piece aims to prepare the player for the different demands of the game and to train according to these demands. The most important feature of these games is that all players get the chance to play with different teammates in all parts.

This makes a training session much more functional and efficient for the players. If we give a simple example; In a team of 24 players, the team is divided into 4 in groups of 6 players. 6 players in a group are also divided into 2 groups, 3 among themselves. 3v3 and 4v4 SSGs are one of the most used varieties in lower age groups.

Below you can see an example of 4v4 SSG.

Talent IdentIification, Scouting and Athlete Development Part 2

4v4 Passing Drill

You can come across such examples on coaching pages. It is also possible to create such games yourself in line with the feature aimed to be developed.

So how does a coach do talent identification in these games? In studies conducted on this subject, more talented players can show themselves, regardless of the working group, compared to their peers and teammates.

These players exhibit much superior performance in terms of both speed and distance covered in training. I also share the most detailed research on this subject for you;

Jonathan S J Fenner, John Iga & Viswanath Unnithan (2016): The evaluation of small-sided games as a talent identification tool in highly trained prepubertal soccer players, Journal of Sports Sciences, DOI: 10.1080/02640414.2016.1149602 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02640414.2016.1149602

We will cover the development process of an athlete in the 3rd part of our Talent Identification series.

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