Talent selection in youth football: Technical skills rather than general motor performance predict future player status of football talents

Sieghartsleitner, Roland; Zuber, Claudia; Zibung, Marc; Charbonnet, Bryan; Conzelmann, Achim (2019). Talent selection in youth football: Technical skills rather than general motor performance predict future player status of football talents. Current Issues in Sport Science, 4 Innsbruck University Press 10.15203/CISS_2019.011

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Recommended multidimensional models for talent selection are difficult to implement for practi-tioners in the field. Furthermore, their application has not been established from a scientific point of view, with a lack of clarity concerning how to integrate manifold test results with respect to loading, interaction, and compensation phenomena. Consequently, the question of powerful single predic-tors for future player status are still of interest within talent research in order to determine promising content for less extensive selection procedures. The aim of the current study is a comparison of the prognostic validity of two frequently used areas within talent selection in youth football: physiologi-cally driven general motor performance (GMP) capacities (40m sprint, agility, counter movement jump, Yo-Yo intermittent recovery test) and domain-specific motor performance (SMP) capacities (i.e., technical skills; dribbling, passing, juggling, shooting). The area under the curve (AUC) from the receiver operating characteristic was used to compare the prognostic validity of both motor perfor-mance areas at early and middle adolescence (predicting U20 player status: 17 professional vs. 116 non-professional players at U13/U14; 23 vs. 62 at U16/U17). Although no comparison at the four different age levels led to a significant difference (.07 ≤ p ≤ .65), there was a continuous superiority of SMP over GMP in descriptive AUC values (.04 ≤ ΔAUC ≤ .14). These descriptive differences reached relevant extent within early adolescence (ΔAUCU13 = .09; ΔAUCU14 = .14) and were partially accounted for by the influence of biological maturation (.31 ≤ r ≤ .50 between maturation and performance in 40m and counter movement jump). In line with theoretical considerations and earlier research, these results provide further evidence of the superiority of SMP over GMP in predicting future player sta-tus. Until the applicability of multidimensional models is further established, SMP rather than GMP should be included in less extensive talent selection models, especially in early adolescence.

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