Relationship between relative age measured through decimal age, physical variables and anthropometry in elite youth soccer players

ABSTRACT

Introduction

Age differences between athletes born in the same year, as well as an over-representation of older players, are known as the Relative Age Effect (RAE). Players born at the beginning of the selection year have a physical and anthropometric advantage over their younger peers. Experts keep looking for new prediction variables for talent identification.

Objectives

The aim of the study is to correlate anthropometric, strength and power variables with the relative age (RA) and the level of the teams in which players played in each age category.

Methods

All players (N = 366) from an elite soccer academy of a Spanish club volunteered to participate in the study (U23-U10).

Results

There was a significant correlation between the RA of the players and the level of the team in which they played in each age category but no correlation between trimester of birth and level of the team. We found significant correlations between the players’ physical capacities, anthropometry, RA and the level of the team in which they played for the same age category, mainly from U16 to U10. U23 did not show any correlation between RA and physical or anthropometric variables.

Conclusion

Coaches should be cautious of choosing players based only on anthropometric or physical attributes.

KEYWORDS:

• Academy
• body composition
• football
• performance
• strength
• young

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank all participants for their commitment and disinterested collaboration in this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data sharing statement

Data are available upon reasonable request.

Ethics approval

Data were treated confidentially, and no personal information was accessed. Privacy was respected and no personal information has been published. All participants declared informed consent. This study was approved by the ethics committee of the European University of the Atlantic (CEI-09/2017). The research has complied with all the national regulations and has followed the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/00913847.2023.2258768.

Additional information

Funding

The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research. IAI: Call for requalification of the Spanish University System (Margarita Salas Grants) of the Ministry of Universities of the Government of Spain. Funds linked to the European Recovery Instrument of the European Union: New Generation EU (NGEU).