Youth Soccer Talent Identification and Recruitment

Author: Matt Couch

Publish Date: Sept. 16, 2019

Player identification and youth recruitment is nothing new to sports, especially in college. Some college sports go as far as recruiting and signing players at the age of 13. Similarly, professional soccer clubs all over the world recruit players at the age of 6,7 and 8 for their youth academy’s. As for soccer in the United States, we have programs such as the  US developmental Academy to help identify and recruit youth players from club soccer to play on the national team. Likewise, the Olympic Development Program was developed to help identify and recruit players for the US national team. We are starting to see Major League Soccer teams, who have youth academies, start to scout and recruit players.

With stories of players like Messi being recruited at the age of 7 and becoming a huge soccer star or even Christian Pulisic going to Germany at a young age to play in Borussia Dortmund youth academy and rising through the ranks to play on the first team.  Parents are starting to seek out and take advantage of talent identification camps in the hopes their son or daughter will be the next US soccer star.

A recent study has been released on the key attributes recruiters use to identify youth soccer player talent. The study involved an initial interview of under 13 coaches and 2 follow up questionnaires. The interview provided open ended questions such as “when you are identifying talent at an Under 13 level what is it you are looking for?” and probing questions, “why is this attribute important when identifying Under 13 level players?” The questions were designed to identify the key attributes and understand why they are key to this age level. The interview revealed 29 key attributes, addressing technical, physiological, anthropometric, psychological and tactical abilities. In the first round questionaire questions focused on the level of importance of each attribute. Coaches identified 17 meaningful attributes. Continuing in the second questionnaire coaches were asked to review, rate and justify the 17 attributes identified in the first questionnaire. Of the 17 attributes the top 3 attributes identified were first touch, one vs one, and ball striking. As for tactical attributes, decision making was ranked number one. Coaches stated that the attributes were assessed through small game or full game environment. The most important psychological attributes included coachability and positive attitude. Coaches also identified physiological abilities such as strength and speed to be unimportant attributes.

It is clear that coaches believe key attributes in the areas of technical, tactical and psychological to be the most important, and believe attributes in the areas of physiological, anthropometrical, sociological to be less important. This study provide parents an understanding into a coach's mind and what they perceive as important attributes for the U13 soccer player. For players looking to catch the eye of coaches, I recommend working on the important attributes identified in this research. However, don’t neglect the unimportant attributes. Furthermore, to fully understand what your coach or the coach you are trying out for values in a player I recommend talking with that coach and asking them what he looks for in his players. Taking a proactive approach in your own player identification will help in achieving your soccer goals and dreams.

References

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0175716#sec002