Leistikow, Alain
Tryouts: Player placement based on age appropriateness
5/23/2013
Tryouts for youth sports are a difficult event to organize, control, and execute. There are a
plethora of different ideologies, methodologies, and practices used throughout youth sports.
Many clubs and organizations question should players be placed based on age or talent.
Numerous studies over the years have been done to find the most effect means to place athletes
on appropriate teams for the greatest performance results possible. In this essay I posit that the
age of the athlete should be made the primary priority when placing athletes on teams especially
with children in the U9-U12 age range. I will be discussing the pros and cons of this
methodology by providing evidence from case studies performed in Europe.
Soccer is a complex, dynamic, and demanding sport. It is the world’s largest and most
popular sport with nearly every country performing at any given level of competition. Youth
soccer is the third fastest growing sport in the United States. The majority of the athletes playing
youth soccer in America are in the sport to have fun, to be around friends, and to stay in shape.
There is a minority, however, that seek to advance their playing careers to the collegiate level,
and eventually onto the professional level. So how does an organization help to develop the wide
ranging goals that the athletes have?
In order to develop an athlete they first need to be placed on a team that will allow the
greatest amount of growth throughout their playing career. Tryouts are an event where by a
group of individual players are assessed based on their performance to determine what level of
skill they possess. When this information is gleaned from the tryouts the organization then can
place those athletes onto teams that fit their ability. During tryouts athletes range in age from as
young as 7 all the way up to 18. Each age bracket has its own unique complexities, eccentricities,
and issues that must be addressed by the club or organization. For example, U15-U18 is
generally considered the high school age bracket, and one of the primary qualities of this bracket
Leistikow, Alain
Tryouts: Player placement based on age appropriateness
5/23/2013
is the drive to become a collegiate athlete. Whereas in the U9-U12 age bracket is viewed as the
elementary age group, and their primary concern is the development of the fundamentals. This
vast array of objectives is what makes tryouts so important.
Switching gears for a moment let’s examine the elementary age bracket. This bracket is
the time in which athletes are joining the sport of youth soccer. Many join because their friends
play, but some join because soccer is an important part of their family dynamic or their cultural
identity. Many organizations use programs like Academies or In-House to help familiarize the
athletes to the rules, the fundamentals, and the techniques of the game of soccer. These programs
are typically run by either parent-coaches or volunteer coaches, and many of them have little to
no coaching experience at all. This lack of experience can make it difficult for these athletes to
master the basics, and grow into strong competent athletes later on in their careers. Due to the
limited growth many more advance coaches struggle to accept academy players onto their
competitive teams. They fear that the diminished skill will hinder the rest of the team’s growth.
For the rare exceptional team this is true, but generally this is not the case. Competitive coaches
need to understand that in order for the team to grow each individual athlete must grow no matter
what their skill level is. Ironically, many competitive coaches complain about not having a player
pool to choose from yet ignore players who may need a little bit of work.
This is one of the primary reasons for placing players on age appropriate teams at the
elementary age bracket. By allowing the players to play within their true age group this will help
them all grow in a relatively same time span. Of course, there is always an exception to every
rule, and those few athletes should be allowed the chance to play up an age group. In academic
circles there is a term used to describe this process which is Relative Age Effect. “The difference
in chronological age between children in a single age group is known as relative age and its
Leistikow, Alain
Tryouts: Player placement based on age appropriateness
5/23/2013
consequences as the Relative age Effect (RAE).”1 What this means is that players who are born
in January of any given year are generally more developed than their counterparts who are born
in December of that same year. “As a consequence, children born at the start of the year may be
more advanced in cognitive, emotional and physical terms than other children born at the end of
the year.”1 RAE is witnessed as the key factor in developing young athletes. If an athlete who is
born in December is forced to play up a year or two then their development will suffer due to the
lack of opportunity to perform and the high demand of skill. Since those athletes have less
experience they generally fall behind on skill. When they fall behind on skill coaches will place
them on the bench or give them very little attention figuring that that athlete just does not have
the talent. This is just not the case. They do not have the same experience as their older
counterparts.
This is where the player pool dwindles in the higher age brackets. Since many younger
athletes are over looked due to their age, which is falsely used to determine their skill level, they
do not grow into competitive athletes later on. So by keeping players with their appropriate age
group they have the chance to grow, mature, and develop. By allowing this development they
will become more successful in the older age brackets. This will in turn help to establish player
pools from which coaches would have a great number of athletes to pick from.
Two studies have been done to determine what effect RAE has on the growth and
development of teams, and youth soccer clubs. The first study was done between the years of
2005 to 2009 in the Spanish Professional Football League. The study analyzed athletes playing
in both the elite and amateur side of the youth Spanish soccer clubs. The study found that there
was a wider age range in the elite side than in the amateur side, and that the majority of players
playing at the elite level were born earlier in the year. “This comparison revealed that the
Leistikow, Alain
Tryouts: Player placement based on age appropriateness
5/23/2013
distribution of players in the Elite 2005-2006 group was greater than and significantly to that of
the Elite 2008-2009 group in the months of February and June.”1 According to the study all the
athletes who participate for the youth Spanish clubs were grouped according to their
chronological age which started on January 1. The reason for this grouping was due to the 1997
ruling that FIFA had made to all international competitions. “This selection criterion was brought
in to ensure that the development of young players was linked to their age, the aim being to
ensure fair competition and to give everyone the same chance of success.”1 The study concluded
that player skill and performance varies from year to year and that it is appropriate to monitor the
performance of every individual athlete in order to help continue their growth. They proposed a
few different ideas that could possibly help to reduce RAE in the youth club system. The most
encouraged of these proposals is one whereby athletes are not placed in groups solely based on
performance criteria. “The most logical of these proposals, in terms of their ability to reduce
RAE, are those that seek to delay the process whereby players are grouped together according to
performance criteria or that aim to delay the moment at which youngsters specialize in a single
sport.”1
The second study was performed in ten different European countries looking at the age
distribution at the youth soccer level. This study analyzed the birth-date distributions for the
U15, U16, U17 and U18 national team selections for the different European countries
participating in the study. The study found that the majority of players selected for the national
teams were in the early year age bracket, and few players were selected from the later year age
bracket. “Both Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests and linear regression analyses provided significant
results, highlighting an over-representation of players born in the first quarter of the year and a
decreasing number of players born in the subsequent quarters.”2 They also found that many
Leistikow, Alain
Tryouts: Player placement based on age appropriateness
5/23/2013
youth sports that use skill as the primary basis for evaluation are biased towards children born
earlier in the calendar year. “The talent selection procedures employed in many sports also tend
to discriminate in favour of players who are born early in the selection year – typically those who
are physically stronger and who also profit from other advantages associated with the relative
age effect (e.g. more experience) – rather than those who are born late in the selection year.”2
In conclusion, youth soccer clubs should be focusing more on the development of players
across the board rather than selecting individual all-star players for the foundation of their teams.
By keeping athletes in age appropriate groups this allows all the players to develop at relatively
same speed. This development is difficult to execute in the short term, but is highly beneficial in
the long term. By developing more athletes youth clubs will be able to create greater player pools
enabling more teams to form at high levels of competition. This idea needs to be implemented
primarily in the younger age brackets so that more players are able to grow, and very few are
over looked due to their age.
Leistikow, Alain
Tryouts: Player placement based on age appropriateness
5/23/2013
1. Gutierrez Diaz Del Camp, David; Carlos Pastor Vicedo, Juan; Gonzalez Villora, Sixto; &
Ricardo Contreras Jordan, Onofre. (June 1, 2010). The relative age effect in youth soccer
players from Spain. Journal of Sports Science & Medicine. (2010) 9, 190-198.
2. Helsen F., Werner; Van Winckel, Jan; & Mark Williams, A. (July 24, 2004). The relative
age effect in youth soccer across Europe. Journal of Sports Sciences. (June 2005). 23(6)
629-636.