Relative Age Effect in the Sport Environment. Role of Physical Fitness and Cognitive Function in Youth Soccer Players

Abstract

The need to achieve short-term competitive outcomes in sports may influence the emergence of talent selection strategies, which could bias individuals’ opportunities. The present study aimed to further explore the relative age effect (RAE), a phenomenon that strongly influences youth sport development. The RAE refers to a disproportionately high percentage in sport teams of athletes born early in the selection year. Our primary focus was to explore whether the RAE is supported by behavioral evidence in favor of better fitness—and especially cognitive-attentional functioning—of early as compared to late-born players. A cross-sectional study was conducted on 105 young athletes (u10, n = 52; 9.8 ± 0.3 years old, and u12, n = 53; 11.8 ± 0.2 years old) attending two youth elite soccer academies. Attentional functioning, anthropometrics, physical fitness, and game intelligence were compared across two Age Groups (u10 vs. u12) and four Birth Quarters (BQ1–BQ4). The RAE was statistically significant (p < 0.001), showing that about 50% of participants were born in the first quarter and 75% were born in the first half of the year. More importantly, U12 players outperformed u10 players in measures that were related to sustained attention (with faster and less variable responses; p < 0.001 and p < 0.05, respectively), and in all anthropometric measures (p < 0.001), physical-fitness capacities (p < 0.05). Crucially, neither the attentional measures, game intelligence, anthropometrics, nor physical fitness were affected by BQ (all ps > 0.1 and BF10 between 0.08 and 0.6, showing strong evidence for the null hypothesis). The present findings suggest that the early selection process that occurs during scouting in youth soccer academies offsets the age-related differences that could be anticipated in cognitive skills, anthropometrics, and physical abilities, due to growth and maturation. These birth asymmetries could lead teams to disregard later maturation athletes and athletes born later in the year inducing a larger dropout of those players with the consequent reduction in the talent pool.

The ANTI-Vea task: analyzing the executive and arousal vigilance decrements while measuring the three attentional networks

“…The present study provides further empirical evidence demonstrating that the EV and AV decrement can be successfully assessed along with multiple attentional functions in a complex task as the ANTI-Vea (Roca et al, 2018;Tkachenko & Dinges, 2018;Wickens et al, 2015). The task has proven to be useful to measure the functioning of the three attentional networks and vigilance (EV and AV) as a function of different variables like age and sport practice (Huertas et al, 2019), or musical practice . At Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/awz3g/) can be found useful tools for the research with the ANTI-Vea task, both with the standard version, as the one used in the present research, and the web-based version (www.ugr.es/~neurocog/ANTI/), that is freely available in different languages.…”

Appreciating Factors Beyond the Physical in Talent Identification and Development: Insights From the FC Barcelona Sporting Model

“…Key attributes that influence selection within the current context include decision-making, technical proficiency, and game intelligence (e.g., cognition and spatial awareness); however, there is a paucity of research that has investigated such variables in association with the prevalence of the RAE. Huertas et al ( 2019 ) however, examined the “cognitive function” of youth soccer players within two elite academies in relation to birth quartile. Despite the presence of the RAE, measures assessing players' cognitive function were comparable across birth quartiles (Huertas et al, 2019 ).…”

“…Huertas et al ( 2019 ) however, examined the “cognitive function” of youth soccer players within two elite academies in relation to birth quartile. Despite the presence of the RAE, measures assessing players' cognitive function were comparable across birth quartiles (Huertas et al, 2019 ). Similar to existing RAE research in elite settings though, players' abilities (e.g., physical or cognitive measures) were shown to be comparable across birth quartiles, yet the RAE remained prevalent.…”

Maturity Related Differences in Body Composition Assessed by Classic and Specific Bioimpedance Vector Analysis among Male Elite Youth Soccer Players

“…Athletes with similar chronological age competing in the same category levels can, in fact, show a difference in maturity status, where the offset is reached at 14 ± 1 years in boys and at 12 ± 1 years in girls [22]. Subjects in early maturation show higher muscle mass and body dimensions compared with peers in late maturation, which also implies a better physical performance [23][24][25]. Moreover, Koury et al [26] suggested that maturity status is influenced by bioimpedance values in young male soccer athletes, highlighting the differences in BC between non-mature and mature male adolescent soccer players.…”