A bioecological perspective on talent identification in junior-elite soccer: A Pan-European perspective

Abstract

Elite soccer clubs across Europe spend ever-increasing sums of money on transfers and salaries for worldclass players. Consequently, clubs' talent identification and development processes for junior players have become more professionalised. Based on a holistic ecological approach, this study presents an analysis of talent identification practices across some of the most productive soccer academies in Europe (N = 11). Data were collected via semi-structured interviews with 11 heads of academy recruitment from clubs in the "big five" European leagues. Clubs were purposively sampled based on their player productivity ranking. Interviews ranged from 52:26 minutes to 114:06 minutes in length (m = 87:53 ± 20.10 minutes). This study argues that holistic ecological approaches the environments were characterised through the interplay of factors that ranged from high-level internal to international level relationships. This resulted in the identification and recruitment of players from local and international environments. The purpose of recruitment was suggested to have a dual purpose: recruitment of players for the first team; recruitment of players for further development/monitoring and/or selling to another club.

Motor Performance in Male Youth Soccer Players: A Systematic Review of Longitudinal Studies

“…Thus, the design and implementation of appropriate programs to uncover youth soccer players' potentials are common practice within soccer academies. These academies support the early development [4] and then the transition of young players into the senior professional world [5,6].…”

Research in Another un-Examined (RAE) context. A chronology of 35 years of relative age effect research in soccer: is it time to move on?

“…The findings reported a significant selection bias when no-age group information was presented, however, the selection bias was eliminated when participants had access to the players' relative age, in the form of age-ordered shirt numbering. Evidence, that this pragmatic research is filtering its way into the performance domain was illustrated recently in a holistic ecological analysis of talent recruitment and development environments from eleven of the most successful elite soccer academies across Europe (Reeves & Roberts, 2019). Indeed, data indicated that the RAE was understood by all the clubs and pedagogical age group modification strategies similar to those reported by Mann and colleagues (2017) were employed during real-time scouting assignments.…”

“…From a biological perspective, variations between chronological age and biological maturation (i.e. relatively older vs late maturing) are reported to be understood by a number of Europe's leading academies and, in some cases, estimates of skeletal maturity are in place to measure and monitor players classified as late, average or early maturity according to birth date quarter (Reeves & Roberts, 2019). One club was employing bio-banding strategies (Cumming et al, 2017) where players were grouped by estimated biological maturity status (Kharmis & Roche, 1994) for specific competitions and training once maturity variances were observed.…”

A Qualitative Meta-Study of a Decade of the Holistic Ecological Approach to Talent Development

“…That is, considering the use of Bronfenbrenner and the theory underpinning organisational culture could help develop the HEA and allow better testing of the approach. It is increasingly important to have these considerations since the HEA now underpins Dual Career Development Environment research (Henriksen et al, 2020), talent identification research (Reeves & Roberts, 2020), and community research (Balish & Côté, 2014). Also, considering the way we classify successful environments might need a rethink.…”