1st Edition
Science and Football Identifying and Developing Talent
This book presents a state-of-the-art overview of the science underpinning talent identification and development in the world’s most popular sport. It covers a broad range of topics that span the various sub-disciplines of sports science with contributions from some of the foremost scientists and applied practitioners globally. The chapters provide readers with a comprehensive insight into how sport science is helping practitioners to create more evidence-based approaches when attempting to identify and develop future generations of elite players rather than relying on tradition and precedence. This book dispels some of the myths involved in talent identification and highlights how science is playing an ever-increasing role in guiding and shaping the practices used at the most renowned professional clubs across the globe. It is a must-read for anyone involved in the game at any level including sports scientists, medical staff, coaches, and administrators. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Sports Sciences.
Introduction—Talent identification and development in soccer: An update and contemporary perspectives
A. Mark Williams
1. Talent identification and development in soccer since the millennium
A. Mark Williams, Paul R. Ford and Barry Drust
2. Identifying playing talent in professional football using artificial neural networks
Donald Barron, Graham Ball, Matthew Robins and Caroline Sunderland
3. Evaluation of soccer players under the Moneyball concept
Luiz Octávio Gavião, Annibal Parracho Sant’Anna, Gilson Brito Alves Lima and Pauli Adriano de Almada Garcia
4. Defining the attributes for specific playing positions in football match-play: A complex systems approach
Elise Berber, Scott McLean, Vanessa Beanland, Gemma J. M. Read and Paul M. Salmon
5. A bioecological perspective on talent identification in junior-elite soccer: A Pan-European perspective
Matthew J. Reeves and Simon J. Roberts
6. A survey of talent identification and development processes in the youth academies of professional soccer clubs from around the world
Paul R. Ford, Juan Luis Delgado Bordonau, Daniele Bonanno, José Tavares, Corne Groenendijk, Cristina Fink, Domenico Gualtieri, Warren Gregson, Matthew C. Varley, Matthew Weston, Lorenzo Lolli, David Platt and Valter Di Salvo
7. Change-of-direction, speed and jump performance in soccer players: a comparison across different age-categories
Irineu Loturco, Ian Jeffreys, César C. Cal Abad, Ronaldo Kobal, Vinicius Zanetti, Lucas A. Pereira and Sophia Nimphius
8. Maturity status effects on torque and muscle architecture of young soccer players
Giovani dos Santos Cunha, Marco Aurélio Vaz, Walter Herzog, Jeam Marcel Geremia, Gabriela Tomedi Leites and Álvaro Reischak-Oliveira
9. Comparing the magnitude and direction of asymmetry during the squat, countermovement and drop jump tests in elite youth female soccer players
Chris Bishop, Lucas A. Pereira, Valter P. Reis, Paul Read, Anthony N. Turner and Irineu Loturco
10. A case study comparison of objective and subjective evaluation methods of physical qualities in youth soccer players
James H. Dugdale, Dajo Sanders, Tony Myers, A. Mark Williams and Angus M. Hunter
11. High-intensity endurance capacity assessment as a tool for talent identification in elite youth female soccer
Naomi Datson, Matthew Weston, Barry Drust, Warren Gregson and Lorenzo Lolli
12. New curve sprint test for soccer players: Reliability and relationship with linear sprint
Alberto Fílter, Jesús Olivares, Alfredo Santalla, Fabio Y. Nakamura, Irineu Loturco and Bernardo Requena
13. Cross-sectional comparison of body composition and resting metabolic rate in Premier League academy soccer players: Implications for growth and maturation
Marcus P. Hannon, Daniel J. Carney, Stephen Floyd, Lloyd J. F. Parker, John McKeown, Barry Drust, Viswanath B. Unnithan, Graeme L. Close and James P. Morton
14. Biomechanical mechanisms of jumping performance in youth elite female soccer players
Nathalie M. J. Jeras, Thamar J. H. Bovend’Eerdt and Christopher McCrum
15. The adolescent motor performance development of elite female soccer players: A study of prognostic relevance for future success in adulthood using multilevel modelling
Daniel Leyhr, Johannes Raabe, Florian Schultz, Augustin Kelava and Oliver Höner
16. Hill on a mountaintop: A longitudinal and cross-sectional analysis of the relative age effect in competitive youth football
Robin C. Jackson and Gavin Comber
17. Relative age and maturation selection biases in academy football
Megan Hill, Sam Scott, Robert M Malina, Darragh McGee and Sean P Cumming
18. Longitudinal emotional process among adolescent soccer player in intensive training centre
Yohan Saby, Yann Pupier, Emma Guillet-Descas, Michel Nicolas and Guillaume Martinent
19. Psychological characteristics of developing excellence in elite youth football players in English professional academies
Chris Saward, John G. Morris, Mary E. Nevill, Antoinette M. Minniti and Caroline Sunderland
20. Psychosocial outcomes associated with soccer academy involvement: Longitudinal comparisons against aged matched school pupils
Fieke Rongen, Jim McKenna, Stephen Cobley, Jason Cameron Tee and Kevin Till
21. Positive youth development and gender differences in high performance sport
Donna O’Connor, Lauren Gardner, Paul Larkin, Alun Pope and A. Mark Williams
22. Training load and submaximal heart rate testing throughout a competitive period in a top-level male football team
Vincenzo Rago, Peter Krustrup, Rafael Martín-Acero, António Rebelo and Magni Mohr
23. Power training in elite young soccer players: Effects of using loads above or below the optimum power zone
Irineu Loturco, Lucas A. Pereira, Valter P. Reis, Chris Bishop, Vinicius Zanetti, Pedro E. Alcaraz, Tomás T. Freitas and Michael R. Mcguigan
24. Comparative efficacy of active recovery and cold water immersion as post-match recovery interventions in elite youth soccer
Sam Pooley, Owen Spendiff, Matt Allen and Hannah Jayne Moir
25. The developmental and professional activities of female international soccer players from five high-performing nations
Paul R. Ford, Nicola J. Hodges, David Broadbent, Donna O’Connor, Dawn Scott, Naomi Datson, Helena A. Andersson and A. Mark Williams
26. Evaluating the impact of a coach development intervention for improving coaching practices in junior football (soccer): The "MASTER" pilot study
Narelle Eather, Brad Jones, Andrew Miller and Philip J. Morgan
27. Efficacy of using non-linear pedagogy to support attacking players’ individual learning objectives in elite-youth football: A randomised cross-over trial
Simon J. Roberts, James R. Rudd and Matthew J. Reeves
28. How does the modern football goalkeeper train? – An exploration of expert goalkeeper coaches’ skill training approaches
Fabian W. Otte, Sarah-Kate Millar and Stefanie Klatt
Biography
A. Mark Williams is a highly-cited and world-renowned sports scientist. He is Senior Research Scientist at the Florida Institute of Human and Machine Cognition and a Visiting Professor at several prominent universities in the US and UK. He has published over 300 journal articles and 19 books focusing on the science underpinning how best to identify and develop talent in sport.
