Stressors and Coping Strategies among Early and Middle Adolescent Premier League Academy Soccer Players: Differences According to Age

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine stressors and coping strategies among early (12–14 years) and middle adolescents (15–18 years). Forty male academy soccer players, aged between 12–18 years (M age = 14.22 years), participated in semi-structured interviews, which were inductively and deductively content analyzed. Findings revealed that middle adolescents reported more stressors than early adolescents and that these two groups experienced both common and different stressors. Early adolescents identified making errors, opponents, team performance, and family as salient stressors. Making errors, team performance, coaches, selection, contracts, social evaluation, and playing at a higher level were more prominent among middle adolescents. Middle adolescents reported a greater number and repertoire of coping strategies than early adolescents, and used more problem- and emotion-focused strategies, but fewer avoidance strategies than early adolescents. Based on these findings, it is recommended that applied practitioners working within soccer academies take into account the players' age when providing psychological support.

**We would like to thank the soccer academy for allowing us access to their players and all the academy soccer players who volunteered to participate in this study. The data presented here are based on the Ph.D. work of the first author.

***Author Note: Clive W. Reeves and Jim McKenna are both in the Carnegie Research Institute, Leeds Metropolitan University, Fairfax Hall, Leeds, LS6 3QS, UK. Adam R. Nicholls is with the Department of Psychology, University of Hull, Hull, HU6 7RX, UK.