The maturity status but not the relative age influences elite young football players’ physical performance

ABSTRACT

Talent identification and selection process in young football is based on coaches’ decisions regarding the players’ performance at early ages. The aim of this study was to show how the maturity status and the relative age impact on young football players’ physical performance and their coaches’ efficacy expectations. The physical performance (1RM, Peak power output [PPO], 30-m sprint and t-test) of 118 young football players (U13 to U15; and their coaches’ efficacy expectations were assessed. Relative age was calculated according to the players’ date of birth within their selection year. The maturity status was estimated as the years from/to their peak height velocity (PHV). Linear regression analyses showed a significant relationship between players’ physical performance and their maturity status but not with their relative age. In contrast, the maturity status of players only was associated to the coaches’ efficacy expectations in the 1RM and PPO tests, whereas the relative age was a predictor of the coaches’ expectations about players’ performance in the t-test. These findings may be important for coaches and managers in young football academies since inter-individual differences in the maturity status but not in the relative age are related to physical performance despite the coaches’ expectations.

KEYWORDS:

• Maturation
• self-efficacy
• talent identification
• testing
• yout

Practical implications

• Coaches and scouts should consider the players’ relative age and maturity status as different constructs within the talent identification, selection and development processes.

• The players’ maturity status, but not their relative age, has an impact on their physical performance.

• The players’ physical advantages observed due to their maturity status are only perceived by coaches in strength-related tests (1RM and PPO) and not for sprint or change of direction performance.

• The bias regarding the relative age (relative age effect) could be produced by a coachs’ wrong perception of higher performance of early born players.

Acknowledgements

The authors declare no financial assistance for this study.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported that there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.