Tactical Performance of Talented Youth Soccer Players (Rendimiento táctico de jóvenes jugadores de fútbol con talento)

Resumen

The evaluation of talented soccer players has been based, traditionally, on physical capacities through technical-tactical tests. However, in the last years, soccer academies are focused their evaluations on technical-tactical and physical capacities, as well. Given that, the purpose of this work has been twofold: 1) to examine the evolution of the tactical performance of a group of talented players previously selected; 2) to compare the tactical performance between talented and non-talented players in previous literature. A total of 607 tactical sequences were evaluated. A total of 15 players were selected from an initial sample of 104 soccer players aged 14–23 years (17.03±2.01). The Nomination Scale for identifying Football Talent and the FUT-SAT instrument were used. The results indicated that the tactical principle Width and Length are the most used in the offensive phase, while Defensive Unity is the most frequent in the defensive phase. The effectiveness of the tactical principles decreases from U-16 to U-23. Finally, there is a greater percentage of efficacy in the use of tactical principles with talented players. In summary,thattalented soccer players may have a better tactical acquisition in the offensive phase
than the defensive. So, the precocity in tactical acquisition of these players must be considered when designing training sessions.