IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v16y2019i16p2837-d255951.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Relative Age Effect in the Sport Environment. Role of Physical Fitness and Cognitive Function in Youth Soccer Players

Author

Listed:
  • Florentino Huertas

    (Faculty of Physical Education and Sport Sciences, Catholic University of Valencia “San Vicente Mártir”, 46900 Torrent, Spain)

  • Rafael Ballester

    (Faculty of Physical Education and Sport Sciences, Catholic University of Valencia “San Vicente Mártir”, 46900 Torrent, Spain)

  • Honorato José Gines

    (Doctorate School, Catholic University of Valencia “San Vicente Mártir”, 46008 Valencia, Spain)

  • Abdel Karim Hamidi

    (Doctorate School, Catholic University of Valencia “San Vicente Mártir”, 46008 Valencia, Spain)

  • Consuelo Moratal

    (Faculty of Physical Education and Sport Sciences, Catholic University of Valencia “San Vicente Mártir”, 46900 Torrent, Spain)

  • Juan Lupiáñez

    (Department of Experimental Psychology, and Mind, Brain and Behavior Research Center (CIMCYC), University of Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain)

Abstract

The need to achieve short-term competitive outcomes in sports may influence the emergence of talent selection strategies, which could bias individuals’ opportunities. The present study aimed to further explore the relative age effect (RAE), a phenomenon that strongly influences youth sport development. The RAE refers to a disproportionately high percentage in sport teams of athletes born early in the selection year. Our primary focus was to explore whether the RAE is supported by behavioral evidence in favor of better fitness—and especially cognitive-attentional functioning—of early as compared to late-born players. A cross-sectional study was conducted on 105 young athletes (u10, n = 52; 9.8 ± 0.3 years old, and u12, n = 53; 11.8 ± 0.2 years old) attending two youth elite soccer academies. Attentional functioning, anthropometrics, physical fitness, and game intelligence were compared across two Age Groups (u10 vs. u12) and four Birth Quarters (BQ1–BQ4). The RAE was statistically significant ( p < 0.001), showing that about 50% of participants were born in the first quarter and 75% were born in the first half of the year. More importantly, U12 players outperformed u10 players in measures that were related to sustained attention (with faster and less variable responses; p < 0.001 and p < 0.05, respectively), and in all anthropometric measures ( p < 0.001), physical-fitness capacities ( p < 0.05). Crucially, neither the attentional measures, game intelligence, anthropometrics, nor physical fitness were affected by BQ (all ps > 0.1 and BF 10 between 0.08 and 0.6, showing strong evidence for the null hypothesis). The present findings suggest that the early selection process that occurs during scouting in youth soccer academies offsets the age-related differences that could be anticipated in cognitive skills, anthropometrics, and physical abilities, due to growth and maturation. These birth asymmetries could lead teams to disregard later maturation athletes and athletes born later in the year inducing a larger dropout of those players with the consequent reduction in the talent pool.

Suggested Citation

  • Florentino Huertas & Rafael Ballester & Honorato José Gines & Abdel Karim Hamidi & Consuelo Moratal & Juan Lupiáñez, 2019. "Relative Age Effect in the Sport Environment. Role of Physical Fitness and Cognitive Function in Youth Soccer Players," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(16), pages 1-19, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:16:p:2837-:d:255951
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/16/2837/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/16/2837/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John R Doyle & Paul A Bottomley, 2018. "Relative age effect in elite soccer: More early-born players, but no better valued, and no paragon clubs or countries," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(2), pages 1-13, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Stefania Toselli & Elisabetta Marini & Pasqualino Maietta Latessa & Luca Benedetti & Francesco Campa, 2020. "Maturity Related Differences in Body Composition Assessed by Classic and Specific Bioimpedance Vector Analysis among Male Elite Youth Soccer Players," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(3), pages 1-10, January.
    2. Juan Carlos Giraldo García & Elena Hernández-Hernández, 2021. "Influence of the Tertile of Birth on Anthropometric Variables, Anaerobic Parameters and Quantitative Muscle Ultrasound in School Children," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(13), pages 1-13, July.
    3. Francesco Campa & Analiza Monica Silva & Vincenzo Iannuzzi & Gabriele Mascherini & Luca Benedetti & Stefania Toselli, 2019. "The Role of Somatic Maturation on Bioimpedance Patterns and Body Composition in Male Elite Youth Soccer Players," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(23), pages 1-11, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Benito Perez-Gonzalez & Alvaro Fernandez-Luna & Daniel Castillo & Pablo Burillo, 2020. "Are European Soccer Players Worth More If They Are Born Early in the Year? Relative Age Effect on Player Market Value," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(9), pages 1-10, May.
    2. Paolo Riccardo Brustio & Corrado Lupo & Alexandru Nicolae Ungureanu & Riccardo Frati & Alberto Rainoldi & Gennaro Boccia, 2018. "The relative age effect is larger in Italian soccer top-level youth categories and smaller in Serie A," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(4), pages 1-12, April.
    3. Eleanor Langham-Walsh & Victoria Gottwald & James Hardy, 2021. "Relative age effect? No “flipping” way! Apparatus dependent inverse relative age effects in elite, women’s artistic gymnastics," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(6), pages 1-9, June.
    4. Jose Luis Felipe & Alvaro Fernandez-Luna & Pablo Burillo & Luis Eduardo de la Riva & Javier Sanchez-Sanchez & Jorge Garcia-Unanue, 2020. "Money Talks: Team Variables and Player Positions that Most Influence the Market Value of Professional Male Footballers in Europe," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(9), pages 1-8, May.
    5. Christian Thue Bjørndal & Live S Luteberget & Kevin Till & Simen Holm, 2018. "The relative age effect in selection to international team matches in Norwegian handball," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(12), pages 1-12, December.
    6. Ante Rađa & Johnny Padulo & Igor Jelaska & Luca Paolo Ardigò & Luca Fumarco, 2018. "Relative age effect and second-tiers: No second chance for later-born players," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(8), pages 1-12, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:16:p:2837-:d:255951. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.