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Age at Nomination Among Soccer Players Nominated for Major International Individual Awards: A Better Proxy for the Age of Peak Individual Soccer Performance?

Individual soccer performance is notoriously difficult to measure due to the many contributing sub-variables and the variety of contexts within which skills must be utilised. Furthermore, performance differs across rather specialised playing positions. In research, soccer performance is often measur...

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Autores principales: Oterhals, Geir, Lorås, Håvard, Pedersen, Arve Vorland
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8182689/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34108918
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.661523
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author Oterhals, Geir
Lorås, Håvard
Pedersen, Arve Vorland
author_facet Oterhals, Geir
Lorås, Håvard
Pedersen, Arve Vorland
author_sort Oterhals, Geir
collection PubMed
description Individual soccer performance is notoriously difficult to measure due to the many contributing sub-variables and the variety of contexts within which skills must be utilised. Furthermore, performance differs across rather specialised playing positions. In research, soccer performance is often measured using combinations of, or even single, sub-variables. All too often these variables have not been validated against actual performance. Another approach is the use of proxies. In sports research, the age of athletes when winning championship medals has been used as a proxy for determining their age of peak performance. In soccer, studies have used the average age of players in top European leagues or in the Champions League to determine the age of individual peak performance. Such approaches have methodological shortcomings and may underestimate the peak. We explore the use of a new proxy, the age at nomination for major individual awards, to determine the average age at peak individual soccer performance. A total of 1,981 players nominated for major awards from 1956 to 2019 were included, and a subset of 653 retired players was extracted, thus including players’ complete careers. Players’ average ages at nomination, at their first nomination, and at their last ever nomination were calculated, and differences across playing positions were calculated together with changes over time in the average age at peak. Based on our proxy, the age of individual peak soccer performance occurs around 27–28 years, varying across playing positions from 26 to 31 years. A player’s first peak, on average, seems to coincide with known peaks of physiological variables; their last-ever peak occurs long after physiological performance has started to decline, indicating that the decline can be compensated for by other variables. The peak age is higher than previously reported for soccer; however, it is similar to those in other team ball sports. The average age at peak performance has increased over time, especially in the last decade. Our approach of using proxies for unearthing information about hidden features of otherwise immeasurable complex performance appears to be viable, and such proxies may be used to validate sub-variables that measure complex behaviour.
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spelling pubmed-81826892021-06-08 Age at Nomination Among Soccer Players Nominated for Major International Individual Awards: A Better Proxy for the Age of Peak Individual Soccer Performance? Oterhals, Geir Lorås, Håvard Pedersen, Arve Vorland Front Psychol Psychology Individual soccer performance is notoriously difficult to measure due to the many contributing sub-variables and the variety of contexts within which skills must be utilised. Furthermore, performance differs across rather specialised playing positions. In research, soccer performance is often measured using combinations of, or even single, sub-variables. All too often these variables have not been validated against actual performance. Another approach is the use of proxies. In sports research, the age of athletes when winning championship medals has been used as a proxy for determining their age of peak performance. In soccer, studies have used the average age of players in top European leagues or in the Champions League to determine the age of individual peak performance. Such approaches have methodological shortcomings and may underestimate the peak. We explore the use of a new proxy, the age at nomination for major individual awards, to determine the average age at peak individual soccer performance. A total of 1,981 players nominated for major awards from 1956 to 2019 were included, and a subset of 653 retired players was extracted, thus including players’ complete careers. Players’ average ages at nomination, at their first nomination, and at their last ever nomination were calculated, and differences across playing positions were calculated together with changes over time in the average age at peak. Based on our proxy, the age of individual peak soccer performance occurs around 27–28 years, varying across playing positions from 26 to 31 years. A player’s first peak, on average, seems to coincide with known peaks of physiological variables; their last-ever peak occurs long after physiological performance has started to decline, indicating that the decline can be compensated for by other variables. The peak age is higher than previously reported for soccer; however, it is similar to those in other team ball sports. The average age at peak performance has increased over time, especially in the last decade. Our approach of using proxies for unearthing information about hidden features of otherwise immeasurable complex performance appears to be viable, and such proxies may be used to validate sub-variables that measure complex behaviour. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-05-24 /pmc/articles/PMC8182689/ /pubmed/34108918 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.661523 Text en Copyright © 2021 Oterhals, Lorås and Pedersen. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Oterhals, Geir
Lorås, Håvard
Pedersen, Arve Vorland
Age at Nomination Among Soccer Players Nominated for Major International Individual Awards: A Better Proxy for the Age of Peak Individual Soccer Performance?
title Age at Nomination Among Soccer Players Nominated for Major International Individual Awards: A Better Proxy for the Age of Peak Individual Soccer Performance?
title_full Age at Nomination Among Soccer Players Nominated for Major International Individual Awards: A Better Proxy for the Age of Peak Individual Soccer Performance?
title_fullStr Age at Nomination Among Soccer Players Nominated for Major International Individual Awards: A Better Proxy for the Age of Peak Individual Soccer Performance?
title_full_unstemmed Age at Nomination Among Soccer Players Nominated for Major International Individual Awards: A Better Proxy for the Age of Peak Individual Soccer Performance?
title_short Age at Nomination Among Soccer Players Nominated for Major International Individual Awards: A Better Proxy for the Age of Peak Individual Soccer Performance?
title_sort age at nomination among soccer players nominated for major international individual awards: a better proxy for the age of peak individual soccer performance?
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8182689/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34108918
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.661523
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