The developmental and professional activities of female international soccer players from five high-performing nations

Relative Age-Related Biases in Objective and Subjective Assessments of Performance in Talented Youth Soccer Players

“…The present research provides empirical evidence for the extent of the RAE in a preselected sample of highly talented youth soccer players. Furthermore, consistent with the call for multidimensional approaches that incorporate objective, but also subjective assessments of talent (Ford et al, 2020;Williams et al, 2020), insights were given into the relative magnitudes of agerelated biases in a variety of measures of performance. While an overrepresentation of earlier-born players was confirmed in the preselected sample, the relationship between relative age and all performance factors within each age group was rather low.…”

“…Due to the large sample size, it was possible to compare the performance level of the players based on the weeks they were born in within a year, allowing for a more differentiated, sensitive, and less aggregative analysis that goes beyond the analysis of year quartiles (Cumming et al, 2018;Roberts et al, 2020). Furthermore, the present study followed the recommendation of Ford et al (2020) and Williams et al (2020) by examining age-related biases using a multidimensional design that canvassed a range of performance characteristics whose prognostic relevance in soccer has been confirmed (Höner et al, 2017, in revision). In addition, coach ratings of the current and future performance level of the players allowed an examination of biases in a way that coaches holistically judged the talent of the players.…”

“…For the optimal monitoring and development of young talented athletes, researchers have called for a multidimensional assessment of prognostically relevant performance factors that combine both objective and subjective assessments to integrate the benefits from both approaches (Ford et al, 2020;Williams et al, 2020). Indeed, recent studies reinforce the benefits of a multidimensional approach.…”

Developmental activities of professional male British rugby-league players versus controls

“…The Participation History Questionnaire (PHQ) was used to elicit information relating to activities that players had engaged in during their development. The PHQ has been used in previous studies examining developmental pathways of soccer players Ford et al ,, 2020 and is based on Côté et al's (2005) recommendations. The reliability and validity of retrospective primary/main sport hours-per-week in the PHQ were shown in , with a large interclass correlation coefficient (ICC) of 0.87 for a three-month test re-test and 0.76 for parent/player validity.…”

“…It contained a list of sports (plus space to add sports) from which participants were required to indicate those in which they had participated in regularly for at least a total minimum period of 3 months. Previous studies using the PHQ have reported the amount and type of activities engaged in other sports (e.g., Ford et al 2020), but due to having limited time with the participants (max = 60 min) we prioritised collecting primary sport data and thus, participants were only required to report the number of other sports. Participants were not required to include other sport activities engaged in during physical education classes at school, though those engaged in after school were included.…”