937
Views
5
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
Articles

“The principles are good, but they need to be integrated in the right way”: Experimenting with creativity in elite youth soccer

ORCID Icon, & ORCID Icon
Pages 294-316 | Received 18 Nov 2019, Accepted 01 Jun 2020, Published online: 14 Jul 2020
 

Abstract

The promotion of creativity in team ball sports has captured the interest of many researchers and practitioners, but no studies have explored how coaches perceive and apply creativity-nurturing activities. The purpose of this study was to examine the personal and cultural conditions that enable or obstruct the design and application of creativity exercises (CE) to facilitate elite youth soccer players’ exploration of novel action potentials during soccer training. This examination was conducted in an action research (AR) process where a researcher and a soccer coach applied a selection of creativity concepts as tools to experiment with when designing new CEs. The data comprised audio recordings of design meetings and video observations of practice experiments during AR cycles. Further, the researcher used freewriting to reflect on the process and the coach participated in a semi-structured interview. Thematic analysis showed that facilitation of creativity was envisioned to foster curios, sovereign, de-robotized, playful, and process-oriented players with unique trademarks. However, many ideas were rejected due to beliefs about quality coaching, demands for transferable situations and solutions, and the coach’s conception of creativity. While some ideas were incompatible with established practice, others were rejected since they were perceived to involve unrealistic situations and match-irrelevant solutions. Moreover, the soccer-specific curriculum and match preparation in a tight tournament program left little time to diverge, and the pressure to perform intensified the demand for quality coaching when facing bad results. Avenues for future research are outlined by discussing conceptual, pedagogical, cultural, and political tensions in the results.

Lay summary: This study identifies several potentials for conducting creativity exercises during which the players solve novel challenges and explore solutions they do not usually try during training. However, result orientation and traditional views of quality coaching may limit what is seen as appropriate and therefore limit the exploitations of these potentials.

    Implications for practice

  • Portrays several creativity exercises and outlines principles for designing new ones.

  • Provides resources to interrogate own and others’ beliefs about creativity and its development.

  • Offers key arguments and considerations for coaches who wish to promote creativity.

Acknowledgments

First of all, we express our gratitude to Aalborg BK and especially to Adam Haaning Harell for participating. We also thank our colleagues from Sport and Social Issues at Aalborg University for supportive advice and critical reviews of preliminary manuscripts.

Log in via your institution

Log in to Taylor & Francis Online

PDF download + Online access

  • 48 hours access to article PDF & online version
  • Article PDF can be downloaded
  • Article PDF can be printed
USD 61.00 Add to cart

Issue Purchase

  • 30 days online access to complete issue
  • Article PDFs can be downloaded
  • Article PDFs can be printed
USD 198.00 Add to cart

* Local tax will be added as applicable

Related Research

People also read lists articles that other readers of this article have read.

Recommended articles lists articles that we recommend and is powered by our AI driven recommendation engine.

Cited by lists all citing articles based on Crossref citations.
Articles with the Crossref icon will open in a new tab.