Feature: Football / Soccer
No.47
May 2006
 
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The Key to the World Cup: Environmental Influences on the Development of Expertise in Football
A. Mark Williams
David Richardson

 

Abstract
In this article, we highlight some of the environmental influences that shape the road to excellence in football. Although genetic factors may help determine the likelihood of achieving excellence, an appropriate and nurturing environment is an essential prerequisite to sporting success. Initially, we demonstrate how players’ birth dates and their place of birth impact upon the likelihood of selection into an elite player development programme. Next, we highlight how the quality and quantity of practice, coupled with appropriate instruction and mentoring by parents, coaches and other development stakeholders are all essential ingredients in developing elite players. Finally, we review potential implications for talent identification and development.
Key Words: nature, nurture, expertise, soccer

Introduction
In most countries, professional clubs and National Associations continually strive to identify and nurture the next generation of elite football players. At club level, the process has become more systematic in recent years since spiralling transfer fees and other financial pressures related to the game’s growing commercialism have encouraged investment in elite player development centres or football academies (Williams and Reilly, 2000; Reilly et al., 2003). Similarly, at an international level, the benefit of success enhances national identity and generates increased economic productivity and wealth. Football is big business politically, culturally and financially.
Supporters of club and country revere the major superstars or ‘Galacticos’ of the game at previously unprecedented levels. The esteem in which these players are held leads to an almost unquestioned view that such individuals are blessed with divine or innate talent far beyond that of mere mortals. The perception is that elite players are ‘born and not made’ and that genetic endowment is instrumental to success on the playing field. Clearly, while acknowledging that not all individuals may be gifted with the genetic make-up needed to succeed at the highest level, it should be recognised that environmental influences shape and, most likely, eventually determine a player’s level of achievement. It is unlikely that any individual, no matter what his/her genetic make-up, will achieve much beyond a fundamental grasp of the sport without the appropriate environment to nurture and promote excellence (Williams and Ericsson, 2005).
In this article, we outline some of the key environmental influences that shape the development of expertise in football. What factors help young children progress from their initial involvement in the sport to the rarefied atmosphere of a World Cup tournament? In the first part of the article, we consider some of the factors that may restrict the selection of players into a more systematic training environment such as seasonal birth date bias and place of birth. In the next section, we provide empirical evidence to highlight the importance of appropriate practice and instruction. An extended engagement in deliberate and purposeful practice is deemed essential to develop and refine the skills needed to achieve excellence on the football field. Also, we discuss the merit of early versus late specialisation in football. In the final section of this review, we outline the importance of social support networks such as parents, coaches and other significant mentors in guiding players along the road to excellence.

Selection and Recruitment
Clearly, the first stage in the process of developing elite players is to select and recruit those with the greatest potential to excel in the sport. This process remains fairly subjective with the final decision typically being made by a talent scout(s) or coach(es). The difficulties involved in talent detection and identification in football have already been well documented as has the potential role that sports science can play in this particular process (e.g., see Williams and Reilly, 2000; Reilly et al., 2003; Stratton et al., 2005). Although it is hard to derive clear recommendations for practitioners from current literature, it is worth noting two potential shortcomings in existing selection procedures, namely, the potential bias engendered by seasonal birth date and place of birth.
One of the most pervasive issues in the selection of young players is the bias in favour of those players born early in the selection year. The seasonal birth date bias, or relative age effect as it is commonly known, has been reported in education and across a broad range of sports (for a review, see Musch and Grondin, 2001). In principle, one would assume that players gravitating to the elite level in football would not be disadvantaged by their date of birth. However, skewed birth date distributions have been evidenced for some time with those born early in the selection year far more likely to be selected to participate in elite player development programmes than younger individuals (e.g., see Brewer et al., 1995). This selection bias appears to persist for all age groups and at all levels of the game regardless of recent rule changes intended to alleviate the problem (e.g., see Helsen et al., 2005).
Several explanations have been proposed to account for the relative age effect. For example, those born earlier in the selection year are more mature physically and psychologically and have likely accumulated more experience within the sport than their younger counterparts. These disadvantages often result in younger peers experiencing failure and frustration, reducing their self-efficacy and resulting in withdrawal from the sport at an early age. In contrast, older players are more likely to be selected for competitive, higher level teams and to benefit from enhanced access to better coaching, improved training facilities and extended playing time compared to those born later in the selection year. The key factor is that those involved in the talent detection and identification process should select players based on their technical and tactical skills rather than merely on physical attributes (Helsen et al., 2005). The aim should be to keep as many players involved in the sport for as long as possible so that players have the optimal opportunity to adapt and develop the skills needed to progress to a higher level.
A more recent phenomenon has been the suggestion that individuals born, and presumably brought up, in moderately sized conurbation areas (i.e., population between 1,000 and 500,000 people) are more likely to reach the elite level in sport than those who’s developmental years are spent in smaller or larger population areas (Côté et al., in press). The existing data relates to popular sports such as baseball, basketball, ice-hockey and golf in North America and consequently, it is yet not clear whether a similar pattern would be observed in football, particularly in Europe and South America. In the United Kingdom, for example, Premier League clubs are only allowed to recruit players who reside within a travel distance of one hour (9-12 years) or one and a half hours (13-16 years) from their training academy and most, if not all, of the Academies are located in conurbations with a population exceeding 500,000 people. If this ‘birthplace effect’ exists in football, an important pursuit would be to identify the underlying mechanisms. The suggestion is that those brought up in more moderate size cities and towns have better access to training resources, facilities and high quality coaching than those from smaller or larger conurbations. Clearly, neither date nor place of birth should be a barrier to players aspiring to play at the highest level.

Practice and Instruction: What and How Should Players Practice?
Although selection into a systematic programme for elite player development would appear an important precursor to excellence, this landmark merely signifies a more formal or official starting point on the long road to the World Cup. In order to have a chance of progressing down this road, players must engage in practice over an extended period of time with the specific aim of developing and refining essential skills. Several researchers have provided empirical support for the proposal that the eventual level of performance that players achieve in adulthood is closely related to the amount of practice they have accumulated during their development (i.e., more skilled players accumulate more practice hours; see Ericsson et al., 1993). These researchers have concluded that a ten-year commitment to practice is the usual requirement to reach expert level (i.e., the so-called "10 Year” or “10,000 hours” rule). This relationship between practice and level of attainment has been demonstrated by examining the practice history profiles of players varying in skill level. For example, Helsen et al. (1998) examined the practice history profiles of football players in Belgium and noted that after an average of 18 years involvement in the sport, professional, semi-professional and amateur players had accumulated a total of 9,332, 7,449, and 5,079 practice hours, respectively. However, it must be recognised that a proportion of these accumulated hours may be a natural consequence of playing at a higher level (i.e., increased demands of high performance and the subsequent heightened levels of commitment required).
More recently, researchers have suggested that other factors, such as the type of activities and the quality of practice are more important than accumulated practice hours in the development of expertise. Côté et al. (2003) argued that expertise in a single sport during adulthood is facilitated by involvement in a diverse number of sports during an athlete’s early development. It should be noted, however, that their conclusions in favour of late specialisation (i.e., around 13-15 years of age) are based on data gathered from North American and Australian athletes in sports such as ice hockey, basketball and rowing. An important issue perhaps is that in North America and Australia, no single sport dominates the culture in the manner than football does in Europe and South America. In the United Kingdom, for example, the Premier League Academies may begin recruiting players as early as 6 years of age (although players cannot be recruited officially on to the club’s books until 9 years of age), thereby encouraging, and to a degree, constraining players to specialise early in the sport
Ward et al. (2004) compared the practice history profiles of elite and sub-elite players aged 9 to 18 years in the United Kingdom with the aim of examining the relative contribution of football and non-football activities in the development of elite players. The elite players were attached to the Academies of Premier League clubs, whereas the sub-elite players played for their school team. The average number of hours per week that the elite and sub-elite players spent in football-specific, coach-led team and individual practice, playful football activity and match play are highlighted in Figure 1. Playful activity was classified as fun games, or unstructured activities (e.g., ‘kick- around’ with friends or ‘free’ play) that were undertaken primarily for enjoyment without the involvement of a coach. The amount of time spent in football-specific coach-led individual practice was the strongest predictor of skill before the age of 12-14 years, whereas after this age, the amount of time spent in coach-led team practice was the strongest discriminator between skill groups. The elite players spent twice the amount of hours per week in team practice compared to sub-elite players in each age category.

Figure 1. Hours per week spent in team practice, individual practice, match-play, and playful activities in football for elite (a) and sub-elite (b) players.

The participation histories of players in sports other than football were examined to determine whether skill groups could be differentiated on practice, play and match play in these activities. The intention was to examine the difference in sporting diversity and its influence upon skilled behaviour. There were no differences between the elite and sub-elite players in the number of hours accumulated in other sports, the number of sports played, or the age at which players stopped participating in other sports. These findings clearly contradict those reported by Côté et al. (2003) who proposed that expert participants demonstrate greater diversity in the nature of their involvement in other sports compared with less-expert performers. Although early specialisation in a sport can have negative consequences (see Baker, 2003), it seems inevitable that it is an important precursor to expertise in football, albeit perhaps not to the exclusion of participation in other sports.
Since a relatively small percentage of elite youth players in the United Kingdom progress to full-time professional status in adulthood, it is possible that the contribution of football and non-football activities during the development of adult professional players may differ from those of elite youth players who do not progress to this stage. Ford et al. (in press) revisited the sample gathered by Ward et al. (2004) by identifying a group of players who in the intervening years had been retained by the professional club on a full-time basis (i.e., an Academy scholarship from 17-19 years). These players’ practice history profiles were compared against those who were released by the professional club at the same age and a control group of recreational players. The data are presented in Figure 2.



Figure 2. Mean hours per week (and between participant SE bars) spent in (a) football-specific team practice, (b) football-specific individual practice, and (c) football-specific deliberate play across a four-year period (12-16 years) for players retained (professional) and released by professional clubs as well as recreational players (data from Ford et al., in press).

There were no differences between the retained and released players in relation to the amount of time spent per week in coach-led team and individual practice over a 4-year period prior to the decision to retain or release, although not surprisingly both groups accumulated more practice hours than the recreational players. The amount of time per week spent in match play and participation in other sports did not differ across the three groups. However, players who had been retained by the club spent significantly more hours per week in playful football activity (i.e., in addition to the coach-led practice) during this 4-year period compared to those who were released by the club. This playful activity (or free play) included, for example, playing with friends, ‘street football’, and kicking a ball around on their own in an unsupervised manner (i.e. not coach-led). The findings support previous data from elite Brazilian players who up to the age of 15 years participate in large amounts of playful football activity with limited exposure to structured coaching activity (Salmela et al., 2003).
At least two explanations exist to account for why the amount of time spent in playful football activity differentiated elite youth football players who progressed to professional status from those who did not. First, because time per week spent in coach-led team and individual practice did not differentiate retained from released players, the extra time that the retained players spent in playful football activity suggests that they accumulated more practice hours compared to those who were released by the clubs. Second, the structure and conditions of playful activity may have contributed to the observed skill differences. There is increasing evidence to suggest that less structured and more ‘hands-off’ approaches to practice and instruction may be more beneficial for developing adaptable and flexible players than traditional prescriptive or ‘hands-on’ coaching styles (Williams and Hodges, 2005). For example, several researchers have recently endorsed the use of discovery learning or guided-discovery approaches in the development of elite performers (see Stratton et al., 2005). These approaches may reflect a perception that modern players are over-coached and that greater opportunity should be provided to engage in, or to simulate, the practice conditions evident when playing ‘street football’ or learning skills on the beaches of South America.

The Role of Significant Others in Elite Player Development Parent(s)
The supportive role of the parent(s) and/or guardian is a fundamental component of a child’s level of participation and continued success in sport (Wuerth et al., 2004). Kay (2000) suggested that the family was the key agent in the process of nurturing talent, while Hellstedt (1988) identified a parental involvement continuum ranging from under-involved at one end of the scale, to moderately-involved, and finally to overly-involved at the other end. It appears that a moderate level of parental involvement is best to facilitate a sporting career, whereas disinterested and, conversely, overly-involved parents appear to play a more disruptive role in a child’s progress. Children with overly-involved parents are likely to perceive (and receive) higher levels of parental pressure (Wuerth et al., 2004). Clearly, however, what may be perceived as perfectly acceptable involvement for one child may be perceived as excessive and stressful by another.
The relative importance of parental involvement may interact with a child’s stage of development. Bloom (1985) offered some social context for his stages of development namely, an initiation phase characterised by terms such as fun, joyfulness, playfulness, excitement and special, a developmental phase characterised by terms such as hooked and committed (by and to sport respectively) and a perfection (or mastery) phase characterised by an increased obsession to the sport and more responsible behaviour. Similarly, Côté’s (1999) research concerning familial influences categorised three main chronological stages of sport participation. These stages included the sampling years (age 6-12 years), the specialising years (age 13-15 years) and the investment years (age 16 years and over). The apparent transient role of the parent and subsequent child-parent relationship evolves as the child progresses through the various stages. The role of the parent during the early years suggests a predominance of support, shared excitement and interest. As the child progresses to the middle years he/she becomes more independent and reliant on specialist coaching, the parental emphasis is more socially oriented and their apparent directive behaviour should decrease. The latter years suggest minimal directive behaviour and/or direct performance influence as the parents tend to become more passive. It is important to note the potential differentiated role(s) of parents during the development process. For example, some parents have been known to assume the role of coach and/or agent throughout their child’s development. Further research is required to understand the potentially critical (and socially oriented) role of the parent(s) in the transition from young professional to first team player to international player.

Coach(es)
Coaches are likely to play a critical role in helping to nurture and develop elite players. A particularly important task is to ensure that players make optimal use of training time. Coaches have a significant impact on the quality and quantity of practice at each stage within a player’s development and consequently, are instrumental in ensuring that players have the right skills to perform at elite levels of the game (Williams and Hodges, 2005). The role of the coach is however quite diverse and in addition to their control of the practice environment they have a responsibility to help develop players physically and psychologically. It is often the case that coaches act as a player’s mentor, helping to develop the individual both as a player and a person. The relative importance of these roles will vary depending on the player’s stage of development and the involvement of parents and other development stakeholders. It should also be recognised that the coach’s ability to adopt a more socially oriented role is dependent on his/her skill base (e.g., inter-personal skills), capacity, aspiration, belief and/or willingness to embrace such practices.
An important task perhaps is to ensure that the right players are matched with the most appropriate coach so as to ensure that players are able to progress at an optimal rate. The difficulty is that this balance is not always easy to achieve. Popular coaching dictum is mostly governed by intuition, tradition, and emulation (Abraham and Collins, 1998), with traditional coaching values being passed down from one generation of coaches to the next or by the specific culture embraced by the club and/or organization. Coaching behaviour may potentially be perpetuated by myths with a lack of empirical evidence to guide current practice (Williams and Hodges, 2005). A crucial challenge is to ensure that coaching behaviour ‘evidence-based’ practice thereby providing future elite performers with the best possible opportunity to improve and progress.

Other Development Stakeholders
Those involved in youth football recognise that the development of young players is a complex process and that support from a range of stakeholders is needed at each stage within the development process. Young player development demands an inclusive, appropriate and supportive environment that draws on elements of psychological and social support such as reflective practice, counselling, lifestyle and behavioural skills. A talented young player should have access to a range of potential sources of social support at various time periods along their development pathway (including parents, coaches, teachers, welfare officers, sport psychologists, lifestyle coaches). Social support may be offered through instrumental (or tangible) support (e.g., financial or physical support) or through emotional (or intangible) support (e.g., encouragement, appreciation, praise and understanding). An outline of the existing development pathway for Academy players in England is provided in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Potential routeway(s) through the football scholarship scheme in England (adapted from Richardson et al., 2004).

The traditionally entrenched football environment is one beset with a masculine and macho culture which may view a tendency to ‘seek support’ as a potential character flaw. However, social support should be viewed as a dynamic activity that strives to create mutually beneficial relationships. In this sense, social support is something ‘you do’, something ‘you give’ and something ‘you receive’ through active collaboration and shared meaning (see Richardson et al., 2004). Moreover, young players may be hostage to the culture of their developmental environment and the subsequent willingness and appropriate skill base of their social support network to recognise, embrace and practice the value of developing shared meaning, mutually beneficial and informed relationships.

Implications for Talent Identification and Development
The intention in this article was to provide a brief overview of some of the important environmental influences on the development of elite football players. It appears that possessing appropriate genes, whatever these may be, is not sufficient to ensure success on the football field. It is apparent that expertise in football is multi-faceted in nature and consequently, it is almost impossible to identify a particular gene or performance test that predicts whether or not an individual will attain excellence in the sport. Weaknesses on certain aspects of performance (e.g., speed) can often be compensated for by strengths in others (e.g., good ‘game reading’ skills) (Williams and Ericsson, 2005). Although it is permissible to design a test battery to discriminate effectively between skill groups (e.g., see Reilly et al., 2000), the predictive value of such measures for talent identification and selection purposes has yet to be determined.
In contrast, there is an extensive body of research from the biological, social, and behavioural sciences to demonstrate that the human system is extremely adaptive to the stimulus load provided during training and competition (see Ericsson et al., 1993). The speed and efficiency in which individuals adapt to this training stimulus, coupled with the motivation, commitment and persistence to engage in practice are perhaps the most important factors underlying the attainment of excellence. Players are greatly influenced by environmental factors such as the quality and quantity of practice, access to appropriate training facilities and the mentorship of parents, coaches and other development stakeholders. The key factor would appear to be the need to ensure that players engage in practice over an extended period of time such that players adapt and develop the skills necessary to cope with the demands placed upon them during practice and competition. In this regard the most interesting questions focus on the issue of how best to create an environment that encourages such adaptations to occur and how to keep children involved in the sport for as long as possible. The need to provide appropriate and plentiful practice opportunities and to foster strong support networks involving coaches, parents and other significant development stakeholders would appear to be crucial to developing an environment where future generations of players can aspire to take in part in the final stages of a World Cup tournament.

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Contact:
A. Mark Williams
Research Institute for Sport and Exercise Sciences, Liverpool
John Moores University,
The Henry Cotton Building,
15-21 Webster Street,
Liverpool, L3 2ET, UK,
Tel: +44 151 231 4334,
Fax: +44 151 231 4353,
E-mail: m.williams@livjm.ac.uk




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