Reviewing the current talent ID pathway system: the good, the bad, and the future

Talent ID pathways are abundant in sport with many children taking part in the academy sporting structure. It is an attractive experience for them with formalised training coached by skilled practitioners in multiple disciplines in a consistent exposure for the love of their specific sport. They spend long hours for years in an environment which is structured and streamlined to allow the top potential to rise. This approach has been successful in many examples, like the Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP) from the Premier League (PL) in United Kingdom, or the professional academies of professional rugby clubs around the world that serve as a breeding ground for young talent. Their success has taken time to refine and perfect as the optimal environment to foster a child’s development, not just in sport but also in life as well. For many children, this is an exciting prospect that they yearn to experience as they are branched in the same teams as the sporting idols that they look up to. The pathway to success feels real and achievable as they embark on the start of the same journey that many of the professional sportsman would have done so themselves.

Professional athletes train in an environment which is supported by an interdisciplinary team of staff, and children as young as 9 that are involved in a talent ID pathway can be exposed to a similar style of systematic organisation of training. Structured technical training sessions delivered by experienced coaches, exposure to strength and conditioning sessions, physiotherapy, nutrition and psychological support all contribute to the talent ID pathway through a well-planned, holistic approach that is structured and domain specific. The pathways have been designed in a way to streamline the numerous children that come through the system, with its pyramid-shape progression making it difficult for many individuals to ultimately end up with the same experiences that they aspire to achieve. While this is true, talent ID pathways have also been effective in producing the future sporting potential, helping them fulfil their dreams of competing in professional sport.

Football (or soccer), arguably the most popular sport in the world is a prime example of having a deeply embedded talent ID pathway system designed to produce the future superstars for the game. The PL formed the EPPP in 2012 with “the aim to develop more and better homegrown players through this long-term strategy” (6). Set up between the PL, English Football League, the Football Association and other stakeholders, this talent ID pathway strived to enhance the quality of homegrown football players through a holistic approach towards player development which includes their games programme, coaching, education, and elite performance (6) catering for players from 9-23 years-old. School sports have also formed its links with academies such as rugby, netball, hockey that allow their pupils to train and compete in both school and club sport. More independent schools are starting to have academy S&C coaches deliver sessions for school sports programmes, creating a feeder hub for their academy. The structured set up creates a conveyor belt-like production line of children taking part in youth sport, attracted by the ultimate end goal of competing in professional sport, when in reality many of the young athletes that take part don’t achieve this goal, the conversion rate from a junior to senior performer being significantly low, with approximately only 2% of youth athletes that engage in different talent pathways achieving international success as a senior athlete in German football (1,7,8,13).

With so much time, financial resources and commitment invested in taking part in the talent ID pathway with a tiny chance of achieving success at the very top, one must ask the question: How can this environment be optimised to provide a beneficial and rewarding experiences for children that go through the system and mitigate negative effects such as early specialization or worse effects in the long term?

Early specialization of sport – focusing on a single sport specific domain has been researched extensively and been found to potentially have a negatively impact youth development, with risks associated with early specialization including possible damages to overall physical and mental health, high incidence of burnout from the sport and high dropout rates (4). While positive examples of early specialization have emerged such as Tiger Woods or the Williams sisters in tennis, both who have achieved incredible success in their respective sporting domains, there are also well-known negative examples of early specialization having detrimental effects on athletes such as Todd Marinovich have been widely publicized. Placing an elite emphasis on children who are still developing creates issues that they will have to face as they grow older. During a time where the importance for children is to allow them to grow up and develop naturally, to treat them like “miniature adults” is highly inappropriate. An example of talent ID pathways taking it too far include a controversial photo from a Premier League Academy of their Under 5 Elite Player Squad (2). This was shared online and received criticism due to the young age of the children involved and the nature of labelling a squad “elite” at that age. It is highly unlikely that one will be able to determine what good looks like at that age, let alone label them as an “elite” squad. To have a group of players so young that they have not learnt to tie their shoelaces be told that they are not good enough to make it in the “elite” squad send a very negative message to the child, their parents, and also their peers as they go through a crucial period of development.

On the opposite end of the talent ID pathway, when players are faced with the inevitable fact that they are being released from the club, it is crucial for the players to receive support from the academy system. Recent Sky Sports interview looked into the lives of released academy players and what they’ve struggled and been through. Released players dealing with long term injuries, mental health issues, lack of support for post academy football life, getting involved with crime, not being prepared for life post academy football. It is a harsh reality into what is becoming a hot topic for youth athletes involved in a talent ID pathway. The tragic example of 18 year-old Jeremy Wisten who was released from Man City Academy having suffered a long term injury and committed suicide a year later creates a harsh reality check for talent ID pathways to re-evaluate their purpose and also the holistic support provided to the players during and post academy life (9).

Some examples of clubs taking matters into their own hands and going against the grain provides food for thought in the rat race to enter a talent ID pathway at the lowest level. European football clubs like Bayern Munich and Real Sociedad have taken a different approach by getting rid of their U9-10s programme and choosing not to recruit any players till U13 level respectively. Bayern Munich’s deputy sporting director highlighted that they were aware of their social responsibility, especially for young footballers around the region, with this change allowing children to develop longer in their usual environment of the home club without pressure to perform (2). It also encourages young children to explore multisport with “long term studies have shown that learning different sporting skills and abilities can have a positive impact on everyone’s football performance”. Picking up “donor sports” such as field hockey or handball that create a transfer of skills into football can promote early sampling of experiences across different sports (13).

Real Sociedad’s academy does not recruit any players till U13 with their philosophy based around developing children as kids first, allowing them the opportunity for a well-rounded childhood (5). They believe that kids should be encouraged to explore a range of physical activities that suit their interest. From a physical point of view, this allows the child to develop a good balance of skills based upon a wide range of experiences of trying different sport. The fact that other talented children in football to be snapped up by rival clubs does not faze their approach towards player recruitment and development. They want children to have a normal life growing up that doesn’t involve numerous football training sessions a week. This allows the future Real Sociedad academy player to bring with him holistic development through varied experiences, giving the club’s player a valuable piece of DNA that contributes to the overall club identity. Finally, even ex-players such as Ruud Van Nistelrooy said in his recent interview at Oxford Union about his view on allowing the child to grow up instead of focusing on a sport that demands multiple sessions a week of training (10). He believed that the most important thing in the child’s life growing up is being around their close network of family, friends, and education. He was fortunate to have that growing up playing football in the garden, playing tennis, and messing around as kids do. This gave him the foundation physically for him to develop into a great player.

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Ultimately, what is the best practice for a talent ID pathway? Sports like football requires immersion in an early specialized environment from a young age due to the competitive nature of the sport, with 90% of Bundesliga players involved in youth academy for at least 1 season, and 60% of Portuguese U17/U18 players became part of the senior national team (3,7). What are the best ways to avoid negative impacts down the line such as overuse injuries and burnout? The solution may be to provide children with a wide range of experiences as mentioned in a study conducted by Swiss football (11). Within the football environment, they should be given the opportunity to develop a variety of other skills besides football, with emphasis on them becoming well rounded people. The study suggested that an early specialized environment (supplemented with a wide range of sampling experiences (i.e. trying out different sports and having different performance orientation goals – free play) creates an optimal environment for youth to have a chance at becoming professional footballers.

Cancelling a talent ID pathway is highly unlikely and may be an extreme approach towards solving the issues that arise in youth sport. Instead, taking advantage of the highly experienced practitioners in the systems, many who truly believe and buy into the long-term athlete development (LTAD) philosophy and place the development of the child at the forefront is key to ensure that there is a culture shift from the ruthless, cutthroat perception of talent ID pathways that create an early specialized environment, to a more holistic development environment where the children are brought up to be well-rounded people who can positively contribute to society when they leave the talent ID pathway system. This allows the practitioners who recognise what “good” looks like to get the balance right between developing youth athletes for sport and as people, making the talent ID pathway a better experience for children after all.

References

1. Ackerman, P. L. (2014). Nonsense, common sense, and science of expert performance: Talent and individual differences. Intelligence, 45, 6-17.

2. Austin, S. (2020, May 1). Bayern Munich to scrap U9 and U10 teams. Training Ground Guru. https://trainingground.guru/articles/bayern-munich-to-scrap-u9-and-u10-teams

3. Barreiros, A., Côté, J., & Fonseca, A. M. (2014). From early to adult sport success: Analysing athletes' progression in national squads. European journal of sport science, 14(sup1), S178-S182.

4. Brenner, J. S. (2007). Overuse injuries, overtraining, and burnout in child and adolescent athletes. Pediatrics, 119(6), 1242-1245.

5. Clapham, A. (2019, December 24). Inside Real Sociedad, a football club shaped by its academy. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/dec/24/real-sociedad-football-club-academy-la-liga

6. Elite Player Performance Plan. https://www.premierleague.com/youth/EPPP

7. Güllich, A. (2014). Selection, de-selection and progression in German football talent promotion. European journal of sport science, 14(6), 530-537.

8. HÖner, O., Votteler, A., Schmid, M., Schultz, F., & Roth, K. (2015). Psychometric properties of the motor diagnostics in the German football talent identification and development programme. Journal of Sports Sciences, 33(2), 145-159.

9. Kelner, M (February, 24, 2021) Youth football: What happens to those who don't 'make it'? Sky Sports News. https://news.sky.com/story/youth-football-what-happens-to-those-who-dont-make-it-12226577

10. Ruud Van Nistelrooy. Full Q&A. Oxford Union . (Feb, 26, 2016). [Video] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2HhXVNlj68&t=332s

11. Sieghartsleitner, R., Zuber, C., Zibung, M., & Conzelmann, A. (2018). “The early specialised bird catches the worm!”–a specialised sampling model in the development of football talents. Frontiers in psychology, 9, 188.

12. Till, K., & Baker, J. (2020). Challenges and [possible] solutions to optimizing talent identification and development in sport. Frontiers in psychology, 11.

13. Williams, G., & MacNamara, Á. (2020). “I Didn't Make It, but…”: Deselected Athletes' Experiences of the Talent Development Pathway. Frontiers in Sports and Active Living, 2, 24.