UEFA A, Fordypningsoppgave om talentutvikling - Marcelo Ribeiro, 2024

Introduksjon

This study is part of the Uefa A course tasks and the idea behind it came as a complement to what I do in my professional life. Everyday while training with different players I do some questions to myself regarding what I think are the attributes that make a player stand out. It is very common in our professional life that we need to compare players, and opinions about players, the summary of discussions ends up normally by stating the fact that every coach has a different evaluation of a certain player, what is natural since we all see football in a different way, and we all have different references on how our perfect player should be in our eyes.

Main idea behind this exercise was to get information on what differs on the perspectives of different people, with responsibility on developing players, regarding the same situation. This case was created from a simple question in my mind that was: Why does the academy coach think that the player is ready for “A-team” but the Headcoach of” A” thinks not. The desire of this exercise is to find points of convergence between factors that might be considered key factors for the choice of a “ready player” or “not ready player”.

The population of research were professionals that have the last call on the academy development part, such as Top Player Developers, Academies Technical Directors, Headcoaches of second teams, and Headcoach of the same club, that work on the highest professional levels in the country and abroad. The method of research used was centered in video and in-person interviews and the questions used were based on professional life experience and scientific studies. To regulate my questions and the answers I guided the questions to be around the following 4 dimensions: Tactical, Technical, Physical and Mental.

Mål - hensikt

1. Identifying Key factors in talent identification.
2. Identifying key factors for belief in long term development in A group

Metode

Interview, in person or video call. Four questions. Professionals that have the last call on the academy development part, such as Top Player Developers, Academies Technical Directors, Headcoaches of second teams, and Headcoaches of A teams.

Involved clubs: Lyn Fotball, Grand Bodø, Rosenborg BK, SK Brann, Stabæk, Kil/Hemne, Kolbotn IL, Røa IL, Åsane Fotball, Lillestrøm SK, Hønefoss BK, Sporting Lisboa.

Results

• What is the first thing that comes to mind regarding a player being ready for first team? What attribute is it?

• Put by priority the 4 dimensions in terms of what you think is the number one, two, three and four, for you as a coach when you think a player being ready to take the A team step.

• Inside the 4 dimensions give different parameters that you feel the player is required to have to be ready to A team context.

• What is the number one or two player characteristic that would make acceptable for the coach to keep the player in a A team squad even if you feel she is not ready, but will give you something on the long run?

Overall answers by dimension

Answers

What dimension was given most focus to in this scenario?

By the data gathered it was a clear difference between the Mental dimension and the other three.

What attributes were ranked as most important inside each dimension in this scenario?

Mental – Ability to tackle adversity

Technical – Passing Quality

Physical – Speed

Tactical - Game Understanding / Role Understanding / Decision Making

What order of dimensions was mot prioritized in this scenario?

1st: Mental – Technical – Physical – Tactical x5

2nd: Mental – Physical – Technical – Tactical x3

3rd: Mental – Technical – Tactical – Physical x2

What attribute was most chosen regarding as a long belief factor?

Attributes most chosen as factor of long belief were linked mostly with the Mental dimension.

Conclusions

Overall answers showed that the main point of convergence of this study ended up being that the Mental dimension was without doubt the dimension most emphasized as a key factor for talent identification and belief in long term regarding individual players.

With this data in mind the next question that we should do is: how are the clubs in Norway preparing their academy players for it?

Inside the Mental Dimension, the attribute most referred was the ability to tackle adversity. The ability to tackle adversity on an individual sphere, can be reflected by the environment that the player was raised in; can also reflect the competitive (or not) environment the player faced throughout their academy life. How competitive are the environments in our academies? What type of opposition do we face? What type of tools can we give to our players at early ages for them to be able to face problems/challenges in order to develop these characteristics?

Regarding key factors in long term belief, again the Mental Dimension was the main convergence point. With this answers in mind, my main point of reflection for us that work in club-based football, is that we should extend our focus (if we are not doing it yet) to the side of the game that is played without the ball and that we can prepare our curriculums on that direction so that the players we create can be at the level of expectations we have at the highest levels in the country and abroad.

Reflections

How clear did the coaches have their answers in their head? How strong were their convictions?

After going through the interview process and interaction with different coaches it was clear to see that some coaches have very defined ideas of what their priorities are for each player and how each dimension translates to football. I believe that this clarity of ideas also translates on how strong the Coach Identity is, and the level of knowledge towards the game and his own methods.

The opposite side of the coin on this factor is that coaches without very specific football ideas /identity might struggle to go from the general plan to the specific plan on what the players need to develop, or where the prioritization on what needs to be coached must be applied.

One thing is having an idea on how to make a team work, a different thing is: how am I going to coach a player to learn to execute my ideas on the pitch?

The higher the level of clarification of what is fundamental to coach inside each dimension, the higher level of specificity the methodology will have regarding coaching ideas, for each coach. It will help prioritizing training processes and subjects.

Decision making in what? What kind of problems does the player need to solve? What is game understanding?

Game understanding can be defined as the ability to comprehend what is currently happening on the pitch, predict what will happen next, and therefore act before all other players. The 1st step to this is SCANNING, the process of analyzing:

• the position and movement of the ball
• the position and movement of your teammates
• the position and movement of your opponents
• the open space (the empty areas on the pitch with no players in it).

From all the interviews conducted only one interviewed referred to scanning as a technical ability that needs to be on point or needs to be worked. And only one interviewed referred to space and time perception as an attribute needed inside the tactical dimension. How clear are the coaches regarding what game understanding is? What does it exactly mean to each coach?

What is Rolle Understanding or Game Model Understanding?

Do the players work in beforehand in the same game model? More and more the role specifications inside the game model are getting more detailed, how are the players being prepared for that on the last stages of their development? Do the last 2 teams they played at worked with the same principles per position (if they come from the academy)?

Several times during these interviews I faced the fact that the coach expects the young player to have a good game understanding, but does the coach mean understanding the game or that the player executes towards the ideas inside their game model? Because those two factors are very distinct. And if it is the second one (execute regarding the game model), then how have we prepared the player for exactly that?

Reflection to my practice: How good am I to really be precise on showing what decisions I want the players to do in each moment of the game? Am I just accepting that game understanding is my players knowing what is advantage or disadvantage and connect that to a choice, or am I good at explaining to my players what type of solutions i want the player to have/create on each moment, and help them execute with the know how of Game Model behind?

What are the differences between coaches in bigger academies and the rest? What do they already expect the player to have because they went through their system?

What is the main difference between a big academy club and a club without the same academy? Supposing that big academies have a structured curriculum for the players from a young age, this means that the players that have been through their process arrive in the last stage of development already with being through what the A team expects the player to get ready at. The consequence of this is that the Headcoaches of A team on a club with this structure implemented has a different expectation of what level the player should have when she is supposed to take the step to A team.

Example1: the players that have been through the curriculum in the academy (that is in order with the expectation level of A team) should arrive in J19 level with some expected foundation otherwise they wouldn’t have arrived in that level. Meaning, that the selection process will happen previously and not at «2nd team to 1st team step). This will affect what kind of choices you have a coach will make in order to what is important for long time belief development.

Example2: In a big club you dont choose a player to take the step to A team or keep the player in A team context because the main characteristic of the player is on the Mental dimension (examples: development oriented or tackles adversity) just because mostly all of them already have that in the academy. Why do they have it? Because of the curriculum, or the culture of their environment makes them have to be that way. They have to cope with competitive environments that make it the only path possible while growing up, therefore, when they arrive in A team context, they have those aspects covered.

Should mental part be part of the selection process since we give it so much focus?

By the data gathered the simple answer is: YES.

And if yes, how can we evaluate it?

What specific indicators should we be looking at while scouting a player in the academy or from outside the club?

The answers on this study show a great number of indicators/attributes the coaches are looking for. Should we look for these ones? And if so, at what age in the player development path should we look for them?

At what age should the players already have this attributes as a main part of their identity as individuals that want to be professional football players?

Aknowledgments

I would like to thank all the interviewed coaches for their availability and predisposition to spend time having good discussions regarding talent development ideas and experiences. Everyone was very supportive to the theme and were open to share their beliefs.

There is a sense of community regarding the development of women’s football and if we work together with the goal of improving what we do on the pitch and off the pitch, we will help the quality and professionality grow in our country.

I would like to thank my office colleagues in RBK that were kind enough to be the first people questioned when this project was still getting formed, and that helped me straight down my questionnaire to what I believed was essential to ask.

Last thanks go to my Uefa A colleague Thomas Jacobsen that took precious time to review my work, and to my mentor Jan Roar Saltvik for the guidance throughout the process.