Talent Identifiers: A Brief Overview

?I began researching the world of talent identifiers this week. It was put in my mind whilst studying the?LMA School of Football Management Course: ' Identifying Potential Talent' (https://sportspath.typepad.com/sports-path-e-learning-bl/pfca-online-course-identifying-potential-talent-.html) some of the material I have used is from that course and other through other materials I have consumed throughout the week. It is a really interesting topic with an awful lot of material to explore. So much in fact I’ve only just got started on the material I wanted to cover. As a result, this will by no means be my last post on talent identifiers, so subscribe for more.??

Howe et al (1998) argued in ‘Innate Talent: Reality or a Myth’, that “talent may not be evident at an early age but, there will be some indicators that enable trained people to identify its presence.” With my research this week, I am looking to delve into what exactly are the indicators (identifiers as I am calling them) and how can I spot them.?

It can be tempting to have your eye caught with a player with one excellent attribute, indeed Liverpool academy legend, Stevie Highway [on the wing, we had dreams and songs to sing…], still at the club in one guise or another, claims that you just need one incredible strength; “the best thing to have is one incredible, powerful strength. He [Michael Owen] had that blistering speed and desire to run forward which was his incredible strength. He was able to pick up [skills] and become adequate and competent in all the other areas as time went on.” (video through LMA Identifying Potential Talent portal). However, much of the reading that I have done on talent identifiers suggests that you can only identify potential talent using a model that takes into account the whole individual. One study, ‘Identifying factors perceived to influence the development of elite youth football academy players’ (https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02640414.2012.710753), performed by Andrew Mills, Joanne Butt, Ian Maynard & Chris Harwood (2012), highlighted six factors which holistically could be used to identify talent, they were:

?1)???Awareness (of self and others)

2)??Resilience (coping with setbacks)

3)??Goal-directed attributes (such as passion and a pro-attitude)

4)??Intelligence (both sporting and emotional competence)

5)??Sport-specific attributes (such as what Mills et al call reachability)

6)??Environmental factors

Whilst, the English Football Association Talent ID courses are based around a 4-corner model, developed in the main by Craig Simmons MSc., who was a Physiotherapist at the English FA National School for over 15 years and Player Development Adviser at the English FA for more than 20 years. The 4-corner model also argues that you cannot judge the true potential of a player until you look at ‘the whole player’ this involves taking into consideration their technical, psychological, physical, and social skills when judging the player, as detailed below:?

The model states that the 4 corners are reliant upon each other, so a player needs to show skills or the potential to develop skills in each of the 4 corners to have the potential to develop into a quality footballer. For example, even if a player has excellent ball mastery (technical) and balance (physical) and displays great enjoyment in playing (social) he might not have to potential to develop fully if he struggles with psychological skills such as learning, patience, following rules and awareness of self/others.

Of course, it is possible and indeed incredibly likely that players will develop skills from each of the four corners as they progress through their careers but if players are significantly weak in any of the 4 corners it might be a red flag for a scout. Some examples of the indicators for each of the 4 corners are as follows:

?Technical indicators:

?????????Passing

?????????Shooting

?????????Dribbling

Psychological indicators:

?????????Psychology (e.g., motivation and resilience)

?????????Confidence

?????????Motivation

?????????Determination

?????????Resilience

?????????Concentration

Physical Indicators:

?????????Movement (on and off the ball)

?????????Balance

?????????Turning and running with the ball

Sociological indicators

?????????Family and parental support

?????????Education

?????????Money (family)

?????????Facilities

?Professor Tom Reilly and Professor Mark Williams formerly of Liverpool John Moores University presented a similar model of ' Potential Predictors of Talent in Soccer':?

A study conducted by UEFA regarding youth player development & coaching in 7 countries had similar findings too. The table below shows commonly found characteristics of elite performers in 7/7 European countries, as you can see, they are spread across physical, psychological, social/lifestyle, technical, and tactical characteristics:

On the September 23rd, 2022 edition of the excellent Total Football Analysis Podcast {https://totalfootballanalysis.com/podcast-tactical-analysis-magazine/tfa-alumni-interview-marko-jovic-scouting-serbia-superliga-podcast} Marko Jovi?, a professional scout with FK Radnik Surdulica in the Serbian SuperLiga, states that there is an order to how he performs talent identification; “we are looking for the whole picture. Firstly, we are looking at all the physical abilities of a player and then we would go and analyse technical and tactical abilities and the last thing we would look do is to analyse him mentally, and that’s the tricky part.” I found this interesting as it suggests that his club put a premium on physical abilities above all else. I was interested to find out if other clubs do this the other way round, for example, does Manchester City begin by looking at technical abilities?

My review of the material so far is leading me to believe that to identify potential talent, you must look at the whole player, rather than just one ‘special superpower’ as Stevie Highway stated. However, as I said at the beginning of the post, there is a world of material about talent identifiers, and I am very much just starting my journey. So let’s just say this post is to be continued…