Talent identification

Mped 2nd sem

Dr. rajeshwari
 Talent identification
Talent ID is about understanding the athletes, understanding
their real potential, understanding their total potential – the
physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, technical, tactical and
cultural aspects of who they are as a human being and as an
athlete and systematically developing that potential over
time through quality coaching.
Talent identification also takes a long term approach to player
selection and development, and focuses on training large
numbers of players, instead of cutting all but the elite ones.
It recognizes that many factors affect whether a kid will
make it or not, but rarely are childhood results the main
factor.
• Talent identification is the process of recognizing
current players that have the potential to excel
within football (Vaeyens, Lenoir, Williams, &
Philippaerts, 2008), while talent selection is the
acceptance of individuals into representative
teams and development programs. Talent
identification involves an attempt to predict the
future capacity of performance of an individual
(Abbott & Collins, 2002)
 Talent Selection
• Talent selection can be seen as the short term solution, as
coaches are focused on the current ability of the team players.
They then pick these players to train which will help them to
win games. However, this can have consequences, as coaches
can lose interest in less able players, lessening their time of
play in favor of more successful players.
• However, talent identification is the act of searching for
players who may not be the best in the current time, but have
the potential to eventually become one. These players may
have the motivation to learn and the drive to reach their
potential. This in time will benefit the team and make it more
successful in the long term.
• As noted earlier, there are various aspects of performance and player
characteristics that can be assessed in order to make selection
determinations. An issue here is that players are not excluded on the
basis of a ‘weakness’ in one area, especially if isolated testing is used
(e.g. speed, skill tests, height or body type etc). Some of these
weaknesses may be balanced out through maturation or training, and
some players can compensate for a weakness through modifying the
way they play (Abbott & Collins, 2004). The risk here again is that we
exclude players who may actually have the potential to develop much
further, despite their current perceived weaknesses.
• Different components are necessary for success at different ages
(Vaeyens, et al., 2006). The implications of this is that in identifying
potential, selectors need to be able to look beyond the immediate
success and characteristics, and look at the aspects which are have
better predictive power. Due to the effect of maturation, physical and
physiological components are not recommended as selection criteria
(Williams & Reilly, 2000). Rather, players should be selected based on
skills and ability.
• Ability can include a number of characteristics. Psycho-behavioural
characteristics are believed to be more important than physical and
skill components (Abbott & Collins, 2002). These characteristics are
required for optimizing the development opportunities that they are
afforded, by adopting an appropriate focus within and between
training and competition. Therefore, a player’s attitude will be of
greater benefit to them, especially over the course of a development
programmed, in order to reach their potential than the physical and
skill attributes at a young age (when first being identified).
• An important implication of this is that players’ attitudes and
psycho-behavioural characteristics are difficult to detect in a trial
situation, and so these characteristics should be monitored from
within the development programmed. These characteristics can then
be used for selection purposes when the players reach higher age
groups, as they will have been within the program for more than one
season, allowing assessments regarding their attitude to be made.
 Principles of Indentifying Talent

Some specific principles to identify talent in a group of children are as

follows:
1. Physical Activity Stimulates Growth: Children need a variety of general
movement experiences that helps in physical activity which stimulates
growth.
2. A Wide Variety of Movements Makes them MASTER: Children with a
wide variety of movement patterns in early life will most likely be able to
efficiently master complex movement patterns in sport in their later years.
3. Growth Affects Athletic Performance: Structural and functional growth is
factors which effect athletic performance.
4. Exposure is Essential for Growth: The intensity, length and frequency of
exposure to an activity are essential components of growth in that activity.
5. Right Attitude: Usually, experienced coaches have developed their own
subject criteria to “eyeball” talent or potential skills, i.e., one athlete seems
more coordinated than others, appears faster or stronger than others, and
seems to have the “right” attitude.
• Physical characteristics such as size, strength,
maturation level
• Physiological such as speed, agility and fitness
• Technical skills such as dribbling, passing,
control and shooting, along with defensive skills
• Cognitive such as game understanding and
perception
• Psycho-behavioural such as attitude, desire and
effort.
Thanks