The most interesting aspect to talent spotting are those players that are continually left behind. The forgotten ones are almost always the youngest and smallest in a year group.
In England, where age-groups begin in September few players born in the second half of the year from March onwards make it into teams.
Those unfortunate to be born in June, July and August and who are also small in stature, seem to have two chances of making it into a development programme where selection plays a part – slim and none.
The irony is that if the year start date was changed to January the situation would be very different.
At the moment the vast majority of players selected by professional football clubs are born from September to December. If the age-group start date were changed to January, hardly any of those players would be singled out for selection.
The forgotten ones are almost always the youngest and smallest in a year group
It is true at the biggest clubs in the professional game. There is birth bias in the birthdays of the players in the Barcelona youth set up – it has just moved according to start date of their age-group. Barcelona have few players born between September to December in their set up, as these are the youngest children.
So how do we know if the players who were left behind would not have turned out to be better footballers than those who were selected and taken to a professional club? The problem with the short-term model, which looks for talent which is already developed, is that it does nothing to provide for the talents that whisper: those players whose ability is under developed or late in revealing itself.
The overwhelming evidence is that over the course of three to five years it is notoriously difficult to anticipate which players will flourish and who will fade away
The overwhelming evidence is that over the course of three to five years it is notoriously difficult to anticipate which players will flourish and who will fade away. Talent spotters of any kind continually over estimate their ability to detect potential.
There is a danger that the randomly selected individuals who are treated as ‘special’ tend to achieve better than expected simply because of the amount of time the coach invests in them. If others were given the same chance the outcomes may be interesting.
We have to be better at getting the players with potential into development programmes so at the least they can throw their hat in the ring with the rest
So once we have made a step towards creating an unbiased recruitment policy, what should we be looking for? Good footballers certainly. But should our search involve game related issues or character? Or both?
If we look at the world of talent spotting and the worlds of commerce, industry, science, the arts, theatre, commercial airline pilots, special and police forces as well as sports, each domain’s underlying quests are strikingly similar:
- Who tries hard?
- Who is a good learner?
- Who prepares well?
- Who recovers quickly and calmly from setbacks?
- Who can size up a turbulent situation and make good decisions?
- Who works well with others?
Or, on the other hand:
- Who cuts corners?
- Who turns brittle under pressure?
- Who is clueless about group dynamics?
- Who ultimately doesn’t care?
The elements that have to combine, mingle and come together to create an elite person in any domain are so rare that those endowed with talent cannot be wasted just because they have the wrong birthday. We have to be better at getting the players with potential into development programmes so at the least they can throw their hat in the ring with the rest. We need to be on the lookout for the ‘talents that whisper’.
Article courtesy of John Allpress via the FA Bootroom,
John Allpress currently works with young players at Tottenham Hotspur academy.
