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arXiv · 2105.01226

Modelling age-related changes in executive functions of soccer players

Vincent Chin·Adam Beavan·Job Fransen·Jan Mayer·Robert Kohn·Louise M. Ryan·Scott A. Sisson
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Abstract

The widespread popularity of soccer across the globe has turned it into a multi-billion dollar industry. As a result, most professional clubs actively engage in talent identification and development programmes. Contemporary research has generally supported the use of executive functions - a class of neuropsychological processes responsible for cognitive behaviours - in predicting a soccer player's future success. However, studies on the developmental evolution of executive functions have yielded differing results in their structural form (such as inverted U-shapes, or otherwise). This article presents the first analysis of changes in the domain-generic and domain-specific executive functions based on longitudinal data measured on elite German soccer players. Results obtained from a latent variable model show that these executive functions experience noticeable growth from late childhood until pre-adolescence, but remain fairly stable in later growth stages. As a consequence, our results suggest that the role of executive functions in facilitating talent identification may have been overly emphasised.

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Vincent Chin, Adam Beavan, Job Fransen, Jan Mayer, Robert Kohn, Louise M. Ryan, Scott A. Sisson. 2021-05-04. Modelling age-related changes in executive functions of soccer players. https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.01226

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