Abstract
Talent identification is one of the most important and difficult tasks for football coaches across the world. Even years of research could not provide objective criteria for talent identification in the field of football. Coaches and scouts across the globe use subjective criteria to select talents at an early age. Though most of the old school youth programs still use technical skills and physical skills to select talents, superior physical skills exhibited at an early age were found to have no correlation with the later year performance. More modern youth football programs consider cognitive skills, such as tactical ability and game intelligence, as the main selection criteria for identifying talents, because improving in these two areas is difficult even through proper talent development process. Social factors are not taken into account in the talent identification process, but are considered to be the most important factor for talent development. Proper social environment on and off the field can facilitate young players in developing their talents and they can become future Lionel Messi or Christiano Ronaldo. However, without individual traits, such as inner drive and motivation, individuals cannot become successful in senior years even with the best developmental environment.
Introduction
Talent identification is considered to be one of the most important tasks for football coaches, both at club level and national level. Over the years, most successful coaches were able to pick the best talents at an early age. Clubs and Countries also have created youth football programs to identify and nurture talent at a very early age. Europe has been leading the world in terms of identifying football talents at an early age. France has created a framework where the prospective players are identified and nurtured as early as 9-12 years of age (Duncan). Ironically, France has never own any world level youth football tournaments in last 25 years. On the other hand, two other countries, Spain and England that are known for their superior talent identification and development program have seen huge success at youth football level both winning youth world cups in last decade (Saether). Spain was able to translate that youth talent development program in senior level success as well. On the contrary, England could not translate its youth level success to senior football success. However, nations and clubs that have created a robust talent management program was able to perform better than others consistently. For example, clubs like Manchester United and Barcelona are known to have the best youth football development program and those two clubs are the two most successful clubs in the whole world for the last two decades giving the world players like Lionel Messi and David Beckham from their youth talent development program (Duncan). Talent identification and development is a complex process and some of the coaches are able to do it better than others. This article focuses on the talent identification and development process in football from sociological, psychological, physiological and anthropological perspective.
There is very little consensus about the definition of talent in academic literature. According to Ommundsen (2009), talent is something you are, you have, you can be and you can develop (Saether). Talent is seen as both a static and dynamic concept. The static definition views talent as something you have inherited which is manifested at a very early age. Whereas the dynamic definition of talent focuses on development of a new skill through training and education. Singer and Janelle combined these two and came up with a more comprehensive definition of talent as a combination of physical characteristics, personality traits and abilities provided a specific training and other environmental conditions (Saether). Most of the modern day researchers especially in the area of sport disagree with the static definition as it only focuses on few parameters of skill and performance. Russell proposed a four legged concept with the definition of talent. He said that talent can be detected, selected, identified or developed (Duncan). These are also known as the four stages of talent development process.
Talent Identification in Football
Among all the parameters of Talent development process, talent identification is the least structured. As there are only few parameters that are used to predict talent at an early age, chances of error in the talent detection process is high. In a study conducted among Norwegian football coaches in 2008, it was revealed that most of the coaches have no concrete parameters or matrix for selecting talents. Surprisingly, the results indicated that most of the successful coaches were able to pick talented footballers without fully understanding the basis of their selection (Christensen). Not surprisingly most of researchers, that tried to predict the indicators of talent identification at an early age by using different tests, have failed to come up with a robust framework that can be used by football coaches and youth development programs across the world. Presently, the coaches and scouts across the world in football use subjective criterion such as technique, attitude, balance and speed to pick up talent at an early age. Some others use other subjective criterion such as TIPS (talent, intelligence, personality and speed) or SUPS (speed, understanding, personality and skill) (Duncan).
Function of Talent identification
Talent identification is perceived by football clubs and nations as means to harness nation’s football talent and to bring future success at national and international arena. Talent identification process is sport specific and talent identification in football is different than other sports such as Tennis, basketball or chess. As football is the most popular sports in the world and in most of the countries across the world, majority of the people play football from a very early age, talent identification process becomes more complex. In football, talent identification tries to filter out people who have relatively low level of important talent characteristics and select those with strong chance of success in football during youth and senior years. Once these talents are identified, governments or clubs can focus its energy and resources to development of these talented individuals. One of the main criticism faced by the talent identification process used by nations and football clubs across the globe is the selection of talents at a very early age and then developing them (Lawrence). Naturalists believe that talent development and emergence should be a natural process. Some of the researchers often cite the example of Brazil and Argentina where even with a relatively rudimentary talent identification infrastructure in football, those countries were able to produce best footballing talents over the years (Duncan). Critics suggest that by identifying talents at an early age and putting them through a development program the talent emergence process is becoming a socially controlled process and not a natural process. One of the main challenges, faced by talent identification and development process in football is the high cost associated with it (Lawrence). Often many talent development program fails to generate highly talented footballers on a consistent basis even after spending millions of dollars. However, talent identification function seems to have strong correlation with consistent if not superior performance during youth and senior years in football.
Talent Identification Parameters
Basic Skills
As discussed in the previous section talent identification process is more subjective than objective. There are social, performance and psychological factors that go into the talent identification process. Skill seems to be a common factor which is recognized by almost all coaches when they try to pick talents at a very early age. However, coaches and scouts in football do not agree on which skills they should look for to identify a future Maradona, Messi or Pele. Some coaches concentrate on the basic footballing skills when identifying talent among the age group below 10 years. However, some other coaches look for expert and unique skills for the selection of talent (Lawrence). However, almost all of the coaches use technical skill for selection as they feel that without the basic technical foundation correct it is almost impossible to succeed in football.
Physical Aspects
Apart from the basic technical skill, football coaches and scouts look for certain physical aspects. Although there is no agreement on the physical skills for the talent identification process among the coaching community but the most commonly used physical skills used for identification of talent in football are speed, technique, coordination and physical resources (Saether). Although most of the coaches physical resources such as height as a criterion but many do not consider that as a selection criterion citing examples of Lionel Messi, Neymar Jr and many others who are short in height but are considered the best in football across the world.
Identification of Talent only based on physical characteristics are used most often but it is criticized by many researchers of football science. There are many reasons for the same. Firstly, they cite that children from different ethnic and racial background show different growth rate and age of puberty. Therefore, using a uniform physical skill based matrix for selection of talent may not be effective as physical advantage often tend to nullify when players grow older (Duncan). Secondly, it is found in many research that most of the talents identified at an early age are based on technical skill and physical superiority. However, several studies have also concluded that players who are picked up solely based on physical superiority have lower than average performance at senior level (Saether).
Psychological Factor
Most of the recent literature suggests that apart from looking for technical skills coaches and scouts should look for superior psychological skills when identifying talent at an early age rather than physical superiority. Some of the psychological factors that are found to have some correlation with success are mental maturity, personal quality, attitude and game intelligence. Game intelligence is considered to be one of the most important factor for talent identification by many coaches. In fact, in countries like Denmark, Norway and Spain, this criterion is used as the single most important t criterion for talent identification (Christensen). Along with game identification, tactical skill is another characteristics that is used by many football coaches around the world. Research in recent years have shown that with proper physical conditioning and training physical attributes can be enhanced and also some of the psychological factors can be improved. However, tactical skill and game intelligence are the two most difficult skill to develop. Therefore, it is important to include these two factors in the talent identification process.
Mental maturity is found to be a big factor in the development process. Although mental maturity may not directly dictate the performance on the field during youth years but it has a long term impact (Burgess and Naughton). A study conducted by a Norwegian youth football program found that mental maturity may not come in handy if a player is successful throughout their career. However, mental maturity plays a big role when a person faces adversity (Christensen). For example, the study found that a child with higher mental maturity copes with adverse situation well and therefore develops into a better player. On the other hand, a child with low mental maturity may not cope well with failure especially when they have seen huge success in their childhood or youth years.
Sociological Factor and role of individual
Talent identification is only the start of the whole talent management process. If not developed properly talented children can become big failure when they grow up. In the talent identification process most of the coaches do not consider the sociological factors. However, almost all the best coaches across the world put sociological factor as the most important factor for talent development process (Saether). They suggest that a youth talent to become successful it is equally important to understand and manage the situation on and off the pitch. Clubs and schools seems to have huge impact on talent development. Some clubs seems to do better than others when identifying and managing talent in soccer. This is because they manage the needs of the child both on the field and also create an environment in such a way so that their social life facilitates their growth as a professional player in later life.
One interesting fact about the talent development process is the role of individual vs the role coaches. It is observed by a study conducted by Christiansen (2009) that clubs can only ensure a facilitating social environment but the actual development can happened only if the child has some personal traits such as inner drive, willingness to train and motivation (Burgess and Naughton). This indicates that talent development in football is a more individualistic process and depends on the player more than the environment. The right environment can certainly help accelerate the development but without the inner qualities of growth the program cannot create a talented football player.
Conclusion
Football is the most popular sport in the world. Almost all countries across the world play football. This makes it more difficult for nations and clubs to identify and nurture the best talents. Many researchers have tried to introduce objective criteria into the talent identification process without much success. Talent identification largely remains a subjective process. Technical skill is used by the coaches as the basic criterion for selection. However, mental abilities, such as game intelligence and tactical skill, are also used by coaches to identify talents as these skills are most difficult to develop. Many youth programs use physical criteria to select talent in soccer, but it is observed that physical superiority has no correlation with senior year success. Social factors may not play a big role in the talent identification process but considered to be the most important in the talent development process. However, the final outcome depends on individual traits, such as inner drive and motivation to learn of individuals without which even the best youth programs will not be able to develop future Maradona or Pele.
Works Cited
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Christensen, Mette Krogh. “An Eye for Talent”: Talent Identification and the “Practical Sense” of Top-Level Soccer Coaches. Sociology of Sport Journal, 2009, 26, 365-382. 2009. Web 3rd April, 2016. <http://journals.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/Documents/DocumentItem/17916.pdf>
Duncan, Mike. Talent Identification. Coventry University. 2014. Web 3rd April, 2016. <http://www.scienceandfootball.com/uploads/306.pdf>
Saether, Stig Arve. Identification of Talent in Soccer – What Do Coaches Look For? Norwegian University of Science and Technology. 2014. Web 3rd April, 2016. <http://idrottsforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/saether140319.pdf>
Lawrence, Ian. Talent Identification in Soccer. SIRC. 2010. Web 3rd April, 2016. <http://sirc.ca/sites/default/files/content/docs/newsletters/archive/mid-oct12/documents/Free/Talent%20ID%20in%20Soccer.pdf>
