Soccer and Relative Age Effect: A Walk among Elite Players and Young Players

Abstract

Grouping people according to chronological age is popular in fields such as education and sport. Athletes who are born in the first months of the year usually have cognitive and physical development differences in contrast to those born in the last months of the same year. That is why competitive teams tend to select older players more often than youngsters. Age differences between athletes born in the same year as well as an over-representation of older players are known as the Relative Age Effect. This effect is extensively described in young and elite team sports such as basketball, volleyball or, ice-hockey, as well as in soccer. The purpose of this study is to examine the state-of-the-art of the Relative Age Effect in youth and elite soccer players. This review summarizes recent research articles on the Relative Age Effect related to competitive soccer from 2010 to 2016. The systematic literature search was conducted in four databases: SPORTDiscus, Medline, EBSCO host and Google Scholar. Although causes and final solutions have not been clearly achieved yet, it is necessary to continue investigating this phenomenon in order to provide a starting point for future research.

The influence of birth quartile, maturation, anthropometry and physical performances on player retention: Observations from an elite football academy

“…Our findings for the first aim of this study revealed that despite an overrepresentation of relatively older players, once selected into this academy, birth quartile did not exert a significant influence on the likelihood of being retained throughout the developmental pathway. To the authors' awareness, the relationship between birth date and retention/dropout, after selection into an elite youth academy, has seldom been addressed within previous research 9,34 . Still, our results corroborate the findings within a Spanish football academy, in which birth date was not associated with being retained or promoted to a higher playing level between U14 and U18 groups 35 .…”

Early Single Sport Specialization in a High-Achieving US Athlete Population: Comparing National Collegiate Athletic Association Student-Athletes and Undergraduate Students

“…Another factor that has been observed in many published studies of youth sports is the RAE. [8][9][10] This refers to the overrepresentation of athletes born earlier in a chronologic age grouping. Such age groupings aim to provide a more equal opportunity for participation but do not account for variations in physical and cognitive development within an age group that tend to favor those born earlier in that cycle.…”

“…Another factor consistent with the deliberate practice model is the relative age effect (RAE), which purports that those born earlier in a calendar year will have an advantage in achieving sport success. [8][9][10] Both deliberate practice and the RAE minimize the potential role of genetic traits and environmental influences. 11 However, others [12][13][14] argued that although practice was essential for sport success, various individual genetic differences (both physical and psychological) and social influences combined with training to promote elite levels of athletic achievement.…”

The Effect of Relative Age on Some Performance Characteristics in Young Volleyball Players

“…Afterwards, these researches started to gain a great significance in sports (Larouche, Laurencelle, Grondin, & Trudeau, 2010;Nakata & Sakamoto, 2012). In order to ensure that they have equal opportunities for success in their active ages, teachers and coaches tend to separate children into groups according to their chronological age (Sierra-Diaz, Gonzalez-Villora, Pastor-Vicedo, & Serra-Olivares, 2017;Vincent & Glamser, 2006). This grouping was made to minimize the possible emotional and physical differences of children (Okazaki, Keller, Fontana, & Gallagher, 2011).…”

“…The first studies on Relative Age Effect (RAE) on sports were related to elite ice hockey players, which was conducted in 1984 (Thompson, Barnsley, & Battle, 2004). Teams are frequently divided into groups within the same year and January 1 is considered to be the beginning of such grouping (Sierra-Diaz et al, 2017). September 1 is considered as the beginning in such countries as the UK (Cobley, Baker, Wattie, & McKenna, 2009;Pekel & Kamis, 2018).…”