Talent development in female soccer: Developmental activities of professional players in England.

The activities soccer players engage in during their formative years are thought to significantly contribute to the acquisition of expert performance. Whilst this area has seen great interest in male players, there has been little research in females. The study examined developmental activities engaged in by professional female soccer players in England. 56 female soccer players that had either progressed to professional status in adulthood (professional), or did not (ex-academy), completed the Participant History Questionnaire. Professional players started engaging in soccer at an earlier age than their ex-academy counterparts, resulting in greater engagement in practice and play during childhood. During adolescence, professional players engaged in higher amounts of practice than ex-academy players. Engagement in competition and practice was rated as high in physical and cognitive effort by all, yet ex-academy players reported higher levels of physical effort during early adolescence, and cognitive effort during late adolescence. Findings provide an illustration of the talent pathways of professional female soccer players in England and may inform future talent development systems. Large interindividual variation in soccer-specific and other-sport activity data highlight the importance of further understanding the environments of individual soccer nations and their potential impact on the talent identification and development processes.

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

PURPOSE: Many rugby league clubs rely on developing youth athletes into experts in adulthood. One factor that contributes to the attainment of expertise is the activities that athletes engage in across their development. Therefore, the developmental activities of professional male British rugby league players were compared to lesser-skilled players. METHODS: Players who had progressed from youth academies to professional status, those who were released from youth academies, and those who had only played recreationally completed the Participation History Questionnaire. RESULTS: During childhood, professional players accumulated significantly greater amounts of play compared to ex-academy and recreational players, as well as greater coach-led practice compared to ex-academy . During early adolescence, this pattern continued, whereas in late adolescence the professional and ex-academy players accumulated significantly greater amounts of coach-led practice compared to their recreational counterparts. Professional players accumulated more hours in rugby league up to 18 years of age compared to ex-academy players, with both groups accumulating more hours than recreational . The number of other sports engaged in was relatively low across development and did not discriminate between performance levels. CONCLUSION: Findings from this study may inform future practice of talent development systems within rugby league in Britain.

Perceptual-cognitive processes underlying creative expert performance in soccer.

Creativity is one of the key parts of expert performance in sport and other domains. The aim of this study was to determine the underlying perceptual and cognitive processes that underpin creative expert performance in the sport of soccer. Forty skilled adult soccer players participated. In the experimental task, they interacted with representative video-based 11 vs. 11 attacking situations whilst in possession of a ball. Clips were occluded at a key moment and participants were required to play the ball in response to each presented scenario as they would in a real-game situation. Moreover, they were required to name other additional actions they could execute for each situation. Their solutions on the task were measured using the three observation criteria for creativity of originality, flexibility, and fluency of decisions. Using these criteria, players were categorized into either high- or low-creative groups. Visual search and cognitive thought processes were recorded during the task using a portable eye-movement registration system and retrospective verbal reports. The creativity-based between-group differences in decision making were underpinned by differences in visual search strategy. Compared to the low-creative group, the high-creative players made more fixations of shorter duration in a different sequential order and to more task-relevant locations of the display, indicating a broader attentional focus. They also generated a greater number of verbal reports of thoughts related to the assessment of the current task situation and planning of future decisions when compared with the low-creative players. Our findings highlight the perceptual-cognitive processes that underlie creative expert performance in a sport-specific domain.

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

We study the developmental and professional activities engaged in by 86 female adult soccer players from the senior national teams of Australia, Canada, England, Sweden, and the United States of America. Players completed the Participation History Questionnaire (PHQ) to elicit the amount and type of activities engaged in across their developmental and professional years, including milestones, soccer-specific activity and engagement in other sport activity. Greater specialisation than diversification characterised their childhood developmental activities, including all players starting in soccer in childhood and accumulating more hours in soccer activity than other sports during this period. However, interindividual variation further characterised these childhood activities, with a proportion of players diversifying into other sports and/or soccer play to a greater or lesser degree during childhood when compared to the other players. The amount of coach-led soccer practice increased for all players across their development culminating in an average of 15-16 h/wk across a 40-week season in early adulthood. In contrast, the amount of engagement in other sports and soccer peer-led play varied between players but generally decreased across adolescence to negligible amounts in late adolescence. Findings are commensurate with the deliberate practice framework and early engagement.

Talent identification and development in soccer since the millennium.

At the turn of the millennium, a review paper was published in this journal on talent identification and development in soccer (Williams & Reilly, 2000). In the current paper, we assess progress made in this field over the last twenty years relative to the areas for future research highlighted in the original review. We evaluate developments in light of the calls made by Williams and Reilly to: a) undertake more multidisciplinary rather than mono-disciplinary research; b) embrace longitudinal rather than cross-sectional research designs; c) expand the research base on female football; and, d) better identify the subjective criteria used by scouts when selecting one player over another for entry into a formalised training environment. The body of mono-disciplinary research on this topic continues to expand, and progress has been made in publishing multidisciplinary, prospective, longitudinal data sets, along with advanced statistical modelling procedures, as well as in identifying the experiential criteria used by scouts. We found some variables in these studies have predictive value from adolescence to adult performance level in soccer. We present suggestions for future research to enhance knowledge and understanding of the best practices underpinning the identification and development of future generations of professional players.

A survey of talent identification and development processes in the youth academies of professional soccer clubs from around the world.

Talent identification (TID) and development (TDE) are large fields in professional soccer and in science. However,  TID and TDE processes in youth academies have not been assessed in detail. As such, our aim was to survey professional clubs from around the world about their youth academy TID and TDE processes, with 29 clubs responding to the survey. TID and TDE processes changed as a function of player age. TID processes involved finding the best players locally and regionally, but for older players the search widened to nationally and internationally for the needs of the first team. Clubs used a multidisciplinary approach to TID, but more so with older players. Median number of academy players was 80, 100, and 66 players at 8-11 years, 12-16 years, and 17-21 years, respectively. Annual player turnover in the most recent season (selections/de-selections) was 29% across all age groups, with competition from other clubs cited as a limitation to TID. TDE processes involved weekly matches and 3-5 training sessions per week led by experienced, well-qualified coaches, with most clubs providing players with academic education, residency and transportation services. Our findings extend previous research assessing professional soccer youth academy TID and TDE processes by quantifying worldwide practices.

Attentional and perceptual asymmetries in an immersive decision-making task.

Pseudoneglect represents the tendency in healthy people to show a slight bias in favour of stimuli appearing in the left visual field. Some studies have shown that this leftward bias can be annulled or reserved towards a rightward bisection bias when lateral attentional biases are assessed in far space. Using an immersive simulated, ecologically valid football task, we investigated whether possible attentional and perceptual asymmetries affect sport-specific decision making. Twenty-seven sport athletes were required to judge different game situations, which involved both perceptual and attentional skills to perceive player configurations in the visual periphery. We did not find any performance differences in accuracy rate between the left and right visual field side for stimuli presented close to the screen centre in an object-detection (perception-based) and feature-recognition (attention-based) task. This result is in line with previous findings showing an absence of a left- or rightward bisection bias in far space. However, accuracy was higher for stimuli being presented at visual angles wide away from the screen centre at the left side compared to the right side of visual field. This finding cannot be explained by literature focusing on pseudoneglect in far space, but rather by previous findings on landmark judgments often showing left bias both in near and in far space. Overall, the current findings provide new perspectives on attentional and perceptual asymmetries in real-world scenarios, and different interpretations of results are discussed.

Lessons From the Experts: The Effect of a Cognitive Processing Intervention During Deliberate Practice of a Complex Task.

Deliberate practice is defined as an activity that is highly relevant to improving performance. It is effortful, challenging, not inherently enjoyable, or immediately rewarding and underpinned by advanced cognitive processing. The authors examine the effect of increasing cognitive processing during deliberate practice on skill learning in intermediate-level performers using a novel approach and quasi-experimental design. Two matched groups of intermediate-level Gaelic football players practiced a kick they identified as being most relevant to improving performance during an acquisition phase and pre-, post-, and retention tests. During acquisition, participants rated practice for cognitive effort and enjoyment. An intervention group engaged in structured cognitive processing before, during, and after the kicking practice sessions, whereas a control group did not. Both groups improved kicking accuracy across pre-, post-, and retention tests; however, the intervention group improved accuracy significantly more than the control group. The intervention group rated practice greater for mental effort compared with the control group, while both groups rated practice low for enjoyment. The intervention group increased reflection and evaluation to a greater degree following practice compared with the control group. Findings highlight the value of applying the principles of deliberate practice and increasing cognitive processing to expedite learning in intermediate-level performers, with implications for skill learning across many professional domains.

Attention, Perception, and Action in a Simulated Decision-Making Task.

Over the last decade, research on the visual focus of attention has become increasingly popular in psychological science. The focus of attention has been shown to be important in fast team-sport games. The authors developed a method that measures the extent of the attentional focus and perceptual capabilities during performance of a sport-specific task. The participants were required to judge different player configurations on their left and right sides with varying visual angles between the stimuli. In keeping with the notion that the focus of attention is smaller than the visual field, attentional performance was poorest at the wider viewing angles compared with perceptual performance. Moreover, the team-sport players were better able to enlarge their attentional focus and make correct decisions more frequently than individual athletes, particularly when a motor response was required. The findings provide a new perspective, dissociating the attentional and perceptual processes that affect decision making under various response modes.

Creative decision making and visual search behavior in skilled soccer players.

The ability to produce creative solutions is a key part of expert performance. The aim of this study was to identify the visual search behaviors that underpin superior creative performance of skilled soccer players during simulated 11-a-side match play. Players (N = 44) were required to interact with a representative life-size video-based simulation of attacking situations whilst in possession of the ball. Clips were occluded at a key moment and they were required to play the ball in response to each situation presented. Moreover, they were required to name other additional actions they could execute for each situation. Creative performance on the task was measured using the three criteria of originality, flexibility, and fluency of decisions. Visual search behaviors were examined using a portable eye-movement registration system. Players were classified as most- (n = 11) or least-creative (n = 11) based on their performance on the representative task. The most-creative players produced more appropriate, original, flexible, and fluid decisions compared to least-creative players. The creativity-based differences in judgment were underpinned by differences in visual search strategy. Most-creative players employed a broader attentional focus including more fixations of shorter duration and towards more informative locations of the display compared with least-creative players. Moreover, most-creative players detected teammates in threatening positions earlier in the attacking play. Creative performance is underpinned by different underlying visual processes when compared to less-creative performance, which appears to be crucial in facilitating more creative solutions.

Color Perception and Attentional Load in Dynamic, Time-Constrained Environments.

The capacity to perceive color in the peripheral field has attracted research interest for more than a decade. There is evidence that sensitivity to red-green color variations is lower than for yellow-blue in peripheral vision. Whether, and to what extent, color vision affects the visual focus of attention, which is normally much smaller than the visual field, has not yet been examined. We used a sport-specific decision-making task to assess whether the color of the jersey worn by players appearing in the periphery influences decision making by affecting the attentional and perceptual capabilities. Pairs of players wearing chromatic (blue, yellow, red, and green) and achromatic (black, white) colored jerseys were briefly presented across a range of visual angles on a 6 m concave immersive screen. Participants were required to decide to whom to pass and recall relevant information. Findings indicate that color perception changes vary with increasing visual angle, but that the focus of attention is too small to be influenced by jersey color sensitivity. Decision-making performance decreases with increasing visual angle, but is not influenced by color. The implications for decision-making processes in sport and other professional domains are discussed.

Getting gritty about practice and success: Motivational characteristics of great performers.

We consider the data reported in the target article with respect to key motivational frameworks and characteristics, including grit and self-determined forms of motivation. Empirical data are reviewed that highlight the relationships between these concepts and practice and success. We highlight the concept of grit as a defining characteristic of the super-elite athletes, in reference to both their continued perseverance in the face of obstacles, as well as the increased motivation seemingly caused by such obstacles or setbacks. We discuss the dynamic nature of motivation with respect to cross-sectional and longitudinal age-related comparisons in athletes. Such research is necessary to better understand the characteristics that are potentially transitory or that are a consequence of success, rather than being causal in nature. In the final section, we provide evidence consistent with a profile of a super-elite athlete that is best defined with respect to coexisting types of motivations that have traditionally been considered both positive and negative with respect to their outcomes. The between group comparisons of highly successful athletes in the target article, is unusual yet important if we are to better understand the psychosocial profiles necessary to succeed, that are unbiased by age, practice, and competition experience.

The role of error processing in the contextual interference effect during the training of perceptual-cognitive skills.

The contextual interference (CI) effect refers to the learning benefits that occur from a random compared with blocked practice order. In this article, the cognitive effort explanation for the CI effect was examined by investigating the role of error processing. In 2 experiments, a perceptual-cognitive task was used in which participants anticipated 3 different tennis skills across a pretest, 3 practice sessions, and retention test. During practice, the skills were presented in either a random or blocked practice order. In Experiment 1, cognitive effort was examined using a probe reaction time (RT) task. In Experiment 2, cognitive effort was manipulated for 2 groups by inserting a cognitively demanding secondary task into the intertrial interval. The CI effect was found in both experiments as the random groups displayed superior learning in the retention test compared with the blocked groups. Cognitive effort during practice was greater in random compared to blocked practice groups in Experiment 1. In Experiment 2, greater decrements in secondary task performance following an error were reported for the random group when compared with the blocked group. The suggestion is that not only the frequent switching of tasks in randomized orders causes increased cognitive effort and the CI effect, but it is also error processing in combination with task switching. Findings extend the cognitive effort explanation for the CI effect and propose an alternative hypothesis highlighting the role of error processing. (PsycINFO Database Record

The effect of a sequential structure of practice for the training of perceptual-cognitive skills in tennis.

OBJECTIVE: Anticipation of opponent actions, through the use of advanced (i.e., pre-event) kinematic information, can be trained using video-based temporal occlusion. Typically, this involves isolated opponent skills/shots presented as trials in a random order. However, two different areas of research concerning representative task design and contextual (non-kinematic) information, suggest this structure of practice restricts expert performance. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of a sequential structure of practice during video-based training of anticipatory behavior in tennis, as well as the transfer of these skills to the performance environment. METHODS: In a pre-practice-retention-transfer design, participants viewed life-sized video of tennis rallies across practice in either a sequential order (sequential group), in which participants were exposed to opponent skills/shots in the order they occur in the sport, or a non-sequential (non-sequential group) random order. RESULTS: In the video-based retention test, the sequential group was significantly more accurate in their anticipatory judgments when the retention condition replicated the sequential structure compared to the non-sequential group. In the non-sequential retention condition, the non-sequential group was more accurate than the sequential group. In the field-based transfer test, overall decision time was significantly faster in the sequential group compared to the non-sequential group. CONCLUSION: Findings highlight the benefits of a sequential structure of practice for the transfer of anticipatory behavior in tennis. We discuss the role of contextual information, and the importance of representative task design, for the testing and training of perceptual-cognitive skills in sport.

The effect of deprivation on the developmental activities of adolescent rugby union players in Wales.

The developmental activities of rugby union players and their interaction with deprivation remain to be elucidated. Five-hundred and ninety elite junior rugby union players (14.8 ± 0.5 years) were split into deprivation quintiles. These players subsequently completed a participant history questionnaire to record their involvement in rugby and other sports. Players accumulated 1987 ± 1297 h in rugby between 6 and 15 years of age. During the mini rugby stage (6-10 years of age), players accumulated an average of 113 ± 105, 89 ± 69 and 43 ± 19 h per year in rugby play, practice and competition, respectively. Moreover, 461 players engaged in an average of two other sports during the mini rugby stage. During the junior rugby stage (11-15 years of age), players accumulated 179 ± 98, 115 ± 90 and 64 ± 26 h per year in rugby practice, play and competition, respectively, and 538 players took part in three other sports. Players who were more deprived accumulated less rugby hours and participated in fewer other sports, but age milestones were not different between deprivation quintiles. There were no differences within developmental activities in rugby between deprivation groups.

Attacking and defensive styles of play in soccer: analysis of Spanish and English elite teams.

The aim of this study was to define and categorise different styles of play in elite soccer and associated performance indicators by using factor analysis. Furthermore, the observed teams were categorised using all factor scores. Data were collected from 97 matches from the Spanish La Liga and the English Premier League from the seasons 2006-2007 and 2010-2011 using the Amisco® system. A total of 19 performance indicators, 14 describing aspects of attacking play and five describing aspects of defensive play, were included in the factor analysis. Six factors, representing 12 different styles of play (eight attacking and four defensive), had eigenvalues greater than 1 and explained 87.54% of the total variance. Direct and possession styles of play, defined by factor 1, were the most apparent styles. Factor analysis used the performance indicators to cluster each team's style of play. Findings showed that a team's style of play was defined by specific performance indicators and, consequently, teams can be classified to create a playing style profile. For practical implications, playing styles profiling can be used to compare different teams and prepare for opponents in competition. Moreover, teams could use specific training drills directed to improve their styles of play.

The Effects of High- and Low-Anxiety Training on the Anticipation Judgments of Elite Performers.

We examined the effects of high- versus low-anxiety conditions during video-based training of anticipation judgments using international-level badminton players facing serves and the transfer to high-anxiety and field-based conditions. Players were assigned to a high-anxiety training (HA), low-anxiety training (LA) or control group (CON) in a pretraining-posttest design. In the pre- and posttest, players anticipated serves from video and on court under high- and low-anxiety conditions. In the video-based high-anxiety pretest, anticipation response accuracy was lower and final fixations shorter when compared with the low-anxiety pretest. In the low-anxiety posttest, HA and LA demonstrated greater accuracy of judgments and longer final fixations compared with pretest and CON. In the high-anxiety posttest, HA maintained accuracy when compared with the low-anxiety posttest, whereas LA had lower accuracy. In the on-court posttest, the training groups demonstrated greater accuracy of judgments compared with the pretest and CON.

Perceptual-cognitive skill training and its transfer to expert performance in the field: future research directions.

Perceptual-cognitive skills training provides a potentially valuable method for training athletes on key skills, such as anticipation and decision-making. It can be used when athletes are unable to physically train or are unable to experience repeated key situations from their sport. In this article, we review research on perceptual-cognitive skills training and describe future research areas focusing on a number of key theories and principles. The main aim of any training intervention should be the efficacy of retention and transfer of learning from training to field situations, which should be the key consideration when designing the representative tasks used in perceptual-cognitive skills training. We review the principles that seek to create practice tasks that replicate those found in the field, so as to increase the amount of transfer that occurs. These principles are perception-action coupling, the contextual interference effect and contextual information, which suggest there should be a high level of similarity between training and real-life performance when designing perceptual-cognitive skills training. In the final section, we discuss the transfer of retained skill acquisition from perceptual-cognitive skills training to field performance, which we suggest to be the key area for future research in this area.

Contextual interference effect on perceptual-cognitive skills training.

INTRODUCTION: Contextual interference (CI) effect predicts that a random order of practice for multiple skills is superior for learning compared to a blocked order. We report a novel attempt to examine the CI effect during acquisition and transfer of anticipatory judgments from simulation training to an applied sport situation. METHOD: Participants were required to anticipate tennis shots under either a random practice schedule or a blocked practice schedule. Response accuracy was recorded for both groups in pretest, during acquisition, and on a 7-d retention test. Transfer of learning was assessed through a field-based tennis protocol that attempted to assess performance in an applied sport setting. RESULTS: The random practice group had significantly higher response accuracy scores on the 7-d laboratory retention test compared to the blocked group. Moreover, during the transfer of anticipatory judgments to an applied sport situation, the decision times of the random practice group were significantly lower compared to the blocked group. CONCLUSION: The CI effect extends to the training of anticipatory judgments through simulation techniques. Furthermore, we demonstrate for the first time that the CI effect increases transfer of learning from simulation training to an applied sport task, highlighting the importance of using appropriate practice schedules during simulation training.

The coupling between gaze behavior and opponent kinematics during anticipation of badminton shots.

PURPOSE: We examined links between the kinematics of an opponent's actions and the visual search behaviors of badminton players responding to those actions. METHOD: A kinematic analysis of international standard badminton players (n = 4) was undertaken as they completed a range of serves. Video of these players serving was used to create a life-size temporal occlusion test to measure anticipation responses. Expert (n = 8) and novice (n = 8) badminton players anticipated serve location while wearing an eye movement registration system. RESULTS: During the execution phase of the opponent's movement, the kinematic analysis showed between-shot differences in distance traveled and peak acceleration at the shoulder, elbow, wrist and racket. Experts were more accurate at responding to the serves compared to novice players. Expert players fixated on the kinematic locations that were most discriminating between serve types more frequently and for a longer duration compared to novice players. Moreover, players were generally more accurate at responding to serves when they fixated vision upon the discriminating arm and racket kinematics. CONCLUSIONS: Findings extend previous literature by providing empirical evidence that expert athletes' visual search behaviors and anticipatory responses are inextricably linked to the opponent action being observed.