Creating a framework for talent identification and development in emerging football nations

ABSTRACT

Talent identification and development in football is a complex, multifaceted process. Currently, most of the research in this domain is conducted in highly ranked, established football nations where the sport is immensely popular (e.g. Germany, Portugal, Belgium, etc.). Whilst these nation’s data are informative to some degree, there is little conclusive evidence supporting the effectiveness of traditional talent identification approaches. Typically, talent identification involves actively selecting promising players with early performance superiorities without considering the changes that can occur during development. Consequently, it is difficult to develop a framework for emerging football nations as the repercussions of adopting traditional approaches to talent identification are likely greater due to differences the size of the talent pool, accessibility of systematic training environments, and availability of financial and logistical resources. It is proposed that emerging football nations should focus on: preventing active deselection and dropout to maximise the size of the talent pool, mitigating the influence of confounding factors on talent identification, and longitudinally tracking players throughout development to document the performance profiles that lead to football expertise. Collectively, these strategies can reduce the reliance on identifying players based on early performance superiorities and focus on holistic, long-term development.

KEYWORDS:

• Soccer
• youth
• expertise
• giftedness

Practice implications

Talent identification and development in emerging football nations should:

• Mitigate confounding factors by providing developmental opportunities to players’ less biologically mature or those born late in the selection year

• Relax the selection criteria used in development programmes to minimise active deselection

• Encourage youth footballers to specialise later and diversify their learning experiences during development to help reduce drop out

• Develop national, multifactorial assessment protocols that follow players during development

• Carefully evaluate the structure and available resources in their national talent system

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflict of interest.