The measurement, tracking and development practices of English professional football academies

Figures & data

Table 1. Participant demographics.

Participant Number	Career History Status	Years Experience
Participant 1	Academy Director	15
Participant 2	Academy Manager	13
Participant 3	Youth Coach Educator	21
Participant 4	Academy Manager	14
Participant 5	Head of Coaching	13
Participant 6	Head of Recruitment	11
Participant 7	Head of Coaching	12
Participant 8	Youth Coach Educator	22
Participant 9	Academy Manager	23
Participant 10	Head of Talent ID	23
Participant 11	Head of Coaching	24
Participant 12	Assistant Head of Coaching	11
Participant 13	National Lead Coach	18
Participant 14	Head of Coaching	12
Participant 15	Head of Player Development	13

Table 2. What matters? Factors seen as important for player development.

Theme	Raw data exemplars
Top Down (the requirements of the game at the highest level)	I think that that core technical base is important, not just for our first team, probably most of someone else’s first team (P5) The style type of play first and foremost, the identity of all academy teams and club on and off the pitch and then filter that into the player profile and what we look for (P2)
Bottom up – against player needs	The kid had done really well and then suddenly then hit a ceiling. They collapse and fall apart because they’ve not been used to that challenge of having to fight for every inch that they can gain and don’t have the [mental] ability to cope with it (P3)
Physical Factors	I don’t know if we’ve come away from that [technical/tactical] a bit in recent years looking more for physical qualities (P14) In my opinion we should wipe out the players on the physical part of any decision because we have no idea what that’s going to look like in the future (P2)
Technical and Tactical Factors	We can’t get away from the importance of a real solid foundation, a technical foundation competency, your receiving skills, your ability to pass the ball, your ability to travel with the ball (P8) Midfielders need the ability to scan with game understanding and awareness, with the technical ability to execute (P14)
Psychological Factors	Underpinning everything is the mentality. Without that you won’t give yourself I think the best chance to maximise your potential (P14) Now you’re at the business end of the academy at 15/16 and as you go into the 18/23 that mindset as an elite player is so vital is the most important thing (P11)

Table 3. What is being tracked and how is performance being measured.

Theme	Raw data exemplar
Use of data	We measure [physical] through data driven analysis (P5) It’s [physical] become data driven at the PDP phase (P11)
Coach observation	We provide match reports. We have score scores summary, strivers, strugglers (P12)
Multidisciplinary monitoring	We apply six technical criteria and have different criteria for tactical, physical, and psychological. We audit the players against our criteria for each one (P5)
Player self-review	We measure that through player performance reviews, or how they reflect on how they’re doing (P5)
Differential weighing of measurement	Foundation phase, we measure the six key technical areas only (P5) At PDP, we monitor physically what each player doing, you know, in a certain position, how does that compare to first team? And against players in his position (P11)
Application of game context	Let’s keep looking at the context, what influence can this player have on the game, not how many times they use their left foot, or how many shots they had from outside the box, let’s look at their impact (P13)

Table 4. Integration of factors into a curriculum.

Theme	Raw data exemplar
Informing Individual Development Plans (IDP)	An individual coach analyst provided the data for the IDPs as well. It gave us another bit of information, informed our practice feedback and our decision making (P2) They’ll look at what games are coming up in the next six weeks, it will all be based on the level of challenge, how much do we support them for them to get through and develop? (P14)
Deliberate effort building and “promoting” SMMs	There’s no room for a coach who doesn’t like that element of the game and doesn’t teach it (P7) The terminology being used, I’m feeling that there is that alignment in terms of terminology, the culture is those four values that we created. So that’s really what the golden thread is (P4)
Challenge of conflicting club and individual needs	We had a player at 17, they put them in the 18s and he wasn’t really ready for it, and he didn’t he didn’t cope mentally with the challenges and that affected him technically. Then he was bumped into the first team out of necessity, but nobody really had a conversation with him, which affected his training. So, in three years because he had a five-year contract, he tried to go out on loan but failed. He didn’t really do very well just sat in the U23s. and now he’s just been released (P11)
Differential weighting of factors curricular weighting	Our programme is heavily focused on technique and that’s from sort of the extreme technique at the foundation level, even right the way through to sort of U18, and U21 (P1) We really focus on the key skills or core technical skills for each position (P11)
Stage of curriculum	The foundation phase syllabus is fixed is because we know, when a boy comes out of our program at U11, he’s had the same amount of time protecting the ball, finishing, and passing and receiving, travelling with the ball, defending 1v1 and defending 2v2 (P7) We were quite aligned, the language and the demands will be different [between academy and senior], but it shouldn’t be a shock from a technical point of view, what’s going on in the [senior team] sessions should have some familiarity (P9)