Scientific Programme
Exchange Symposia
IS-EX02 - CSSS-ECSS Exchange Symposium: Talents Identification of Youth Football Players
Date: 03.07.2024, Time: 08:00 - 09:15, Lecture room: Forth
Description
Talent Identification is an essential component of youth football, in order to help players develop, we must identify both their potential and the environments in which they can receive an appropriate variety of challenges. Proper assessment of both physical and technical abilities is crucial to identifying and nurturing potential talent. The process requires a keen understanding of the sport's technical, physical, and psychological demands. This symposia will focus on methods of assessing the skills and fitness of youth soccer players, as well as recommendations for their long-term development. Technical skills are fundamental to soccer and form the basis of any player's ability to perform on the field. These include ball control, passing, shooting, and dribbling. Each of these skills can be assessed during matches, training sessions, or soccer trials. Coaches and scouts meticulously observe how players handle the ball, their accuracy in passing and shooting, and their ability to dribble past opponents. Physical fitness, on the other hand, determines a player's stamina, speed, and strength, which are all critical in soccer. Players must have the endurance to last the entirety of a game, the speed to outpace opponents, and the strength for physical duels. Assessment of physical fitness often involves standardized tests to measure endurance, speed, power, and agility. In conclusion, talent identification in youth soccer players is a multi-faceted process. It requires an unders
Chair(s)
Haipeng Li
China Institute of Sport Science, Competitive Sport Research Center
China
Vish Unnithan
University of the West of Scotland, School of Science & Sport
United Kingdom
Speaker A
Haipeng Li
China Institute of Sport Science, Competitive Sport Research Center
China
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Talents Identification of Youth Football Players and Their Strength and Conditioning Training in China
The development of Football needs to start with youth training. The performance of elite youth football players represents the football level of a nation in the next decade. With the purpose of better understanding the strength and conditioning level of Chinese elite youth football players and identifying talents with science-based methods, the study selected 729 elite football players of U12-16, who registered under the Chinese Football Association (CFA). The players were tested with body posture, velocity, strength, endurance, agility, and flexibility in the training camp organized by CFA. It’s found that compared with the youth elite football players at the same level and age in the countries strong in football, the velocity, strength, endurance, agility and flexibility of Chinese youth elite football players were relatively lower, which indicates that the strength and conditioning training in youth football players in China is overlooked to a certain extent. Meanwhile, using the method of Quartile, the study sets up the criteria of Chinese youth elite football players at the age of 12 to 16, which consists of 4 grades: outstanding, good, pass and fail. The players were encouraged to meet the requirements of pass and good. Moreover, the key players with great potential were analyzed specifically. The weaknesses of their physical fitness were pointed out, and the strength and conditioning training suggestions were provided for precise training.
Speaker B
Ren Dingmeng
Beijing Sport University, China Football College
China
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Research on Assessments and Improvement Strategies of 1v1 Offensive and Defensive Ability for Youth Football Players
The “Chinese Football Association Youth Training Outline” highlights the significance of assessing and training youth football players’ 1v1 ability. To better serve the talent identification, ability assessment, and training plan for elite young players, the current study designed six scenario-based assessment methods to assess the players’ performance during matches in 1v1 offensive and defensive situations. Based on the performance characteristics of 1v1 offensive and defensive behaviours, the research design consisted of three stages: action initiation, action selection, and action connection, including 12 evaluation criteria. Moreover, after investigating the relationships between players’ athletic ability, coaches’ subjective criteria, and the players’ performance of 1v1 offensive and defensive skills, this study compared the advantages and disadvantages of different assessment methods. Research findings showed that: 1) scenario-based assessment methods are effective in capturing players’ 1v1 offensive and defensive ability; 2) action selection is essential in 1v1 offensive and defensive ability; 3) players’ speed quality and technical proficiency are key factors influencing their 1v1 offensive and defensive ability; 4) implementing targeted 1v1 training in various scenarios can significantly enhance players’ individual offensive and defensive capabilities.
Speaker C
Eline Lievens
Ghent University , Exercise physiology & sports nutrition
Belgium
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The importance of the muscle fiber type composition for (youth) football
Muscle fiber type composition is an important performance determinant in multiple sports. Moreover, it has a large genetic component, contributing to talent for sports with specific exercise demands. In explosive, short duration sports elite athletes typically have a large share of fast-twitch fibers (type IIa and IIx), which contributes to larger power production capabilities. On the other hand, the best endurance athletes dispose of a large proportion of fatigue resistant slow-twitch fibers (type I). The optimal muscle fiber type composition in intermittent team sports is less straightforward, since these sports are characterized by mixed demands. Studies examining muscle fiber type composition in high level football players are scarce. Presumably because the current gold standard to measure muscle fiber type composition is an invasive muscle biopsy. In 2011, we validated a noninvasive technique to estimate muscle fiber type composition by measuring muscle carnosine based on proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1 H-MRS). Recently, this method was used on a cohort of 194 high level football players. A large heterogeneity in muscle fiber type compositions was found, in which 33% had a slow, 45% had an intermediate and 22% had a fast typology. Despite the fact that elite football games have become considerably faster over the past decades, rendering players’ speed and power abilities as important performance characteristics, our data in elite Belgian football players rather shows the opposite: an underrepresentation of fast-twitch players. Moreover, no differences in muscle typology were found between positions (goalkeeper, center back, full back, midfielder, winger or forward). Next to positional differences, we prospectively monitored hamstring strain injuries in this cohort. Having a fast muscle typology was identified as a novel, and profound risk factor for hamstring strain injuries, which is possibly linked with a higher fatigue in fast typology players. In lab conditions FT individuals showed a more pronounced performance decrement during high-intensity exercise and need to recover longer compared to ST individuals. Which was recently corroborated in football games, as the decline in high-intensity running activities from first to second half was found to be more pronounced in players with a fast muscle typology. In conclusion, possessing a particular muscle typology is not required to play any football position at the national level. However, there are indications that FT players might fatigue more toward the end of the game compared to ST players, which likely makes them more prone to injury. Therefore, fast-twitch players might need a personalized training approach, to prevent overtraining, muscle injuries and possibly drop-out.