Characteristics of Professional and Non-Professional Football Players – An Eight-Year Follow-Up of Three Age Cohorts

Identifi cation of the most talented youth players is regarded as a key part of the talent development process in football. Th e basis for the criteria is naturally aff ected by the characteristics of the early-detected talented players. Nonetheless, earlier research has found limited evidenced for diff erent criteria in this process. Th is study has examined whether professional and non-professional football players showed diff erences in player and coach characteristics as talented youth-level players eight years earlier. A total of 103 players selected for Norwegian youth national teams (age cohorts 1991–1993) participated in this study. Based on player and coach characteristics, the results showed that non-professional players had the most playing time and felt more successful in comparison to the professional players. Th e professional players, however, reported higher ambitions and a higher number of weekly-organized training sessions. No diff erences between the professional and non-professional players showed in terms of their relationship to their coaches were found. Th e study concludes that we need more research on identifi cation criteria to be able to predict which abilities and skills should be sought in the identifi cation process for youth-level players. As in earlier research, this study also found a poor relationship between youth performance and senior performance.


Introduction
Talent selection and identifi cation have been signifi cant issues in sport science research.Most studies have focused on fi nding the skills and abilities of the most talented players and, as a consequence, predict the future top-level players (Rees et al., 2016).Nonetheless, the talent identifi cation process in both professional and amateur clubs has mainly been aff ected by several well-established assumptions about what characterizes a talented football player.Th ese include the notions that talent is hereditary, that it is domain-specifi c, that a trained eye can identify talent at an early age, and that such early indicators predict future success (Durand-Bush & Salmela, 2001).Furthermore, these assumptions may lead to certain expectations about the characteristics of talented players and their path to elite-level football.Naturally one might expect the most talented players to be characterized by an extraordinary skill level in comparison to their peers, getting more playing time, enjoying competitions and experiencing greater success, having a sole focus on football as their main sport, being more ambitious, and training more in both organized and self-organized arenas.
A considerable amount of research has been undertaken into fi nding early indicators that predict future success.Because of the complexity of talent development and the potential factors aff ecting each other (Williams & Reilly, 2000), the ideal pathway to a professional career is diffi cult to describe.Many of these player characteristics have been confi rmed in empirical studies, even if many of the assumptions need further confi rmation to be used to identify the future top-level players.
Studies have found match-play performance to be closely connected to the selection for full-time scholarships at elite player residential programmes (O'Connor, Larkin, & Williams, 2016).Playing time has also been found to be closely related to the coaches' assessment of the players' abilities (Saether, Aspvik, & Høigaard, submitted), even though some studies have found academy players overvalue their own skills (Nerland & Saether, 2016).Th is would indicate that these players are comfortable in the competition settings during matches.As a result of their early success and feedback that identifi es them as talented, the talented players are also expected to be solely focused on their main sport, potentially increasing the diff erence in skills compared to less talented peers and, furthermore, increasing the players' ambitions (Saether, 2013) to become potential professional players.With regard to the number of sports in which players had participated, results from earlier studies indicate that there were no diff erences between players obtaining a senior professional contract and non-professional players (Haugaasen, Toering, & Jordet, 2014b), as was also shown in other similar studies (Ford et al., 2012).Later research has also shown that the amount of training cannot be taken as a predictor of future success since players obtaining a senior professional contract were not found to train more than non-professional players in their youth (Haugaasen, Toering, & Jordet, 2014a).
However, this notion of a continual positive circle of progression in the players' development has some major shortcomings.Th e relationship between early selection to youth-level national teams and selection later in youth has been found to be weak (Saether, 2015), indicating diffi culties in predicting future performance at an early age.Th is would suggest that despite the positive circles that the players experience, sooner or later they are faced with obstacles that potentially aff ect their development.A well-known explanation for the lack of relationship between skills is the fact that early-selected players are characterized by an early birth month, a feature related to the advantage of being born early in the year, an eff ect called "the relative age eff ect".Th is eff ect has been widely confi rmed among youth-level players (Helsen et al., 2012;Saether, 2015Saether, , 2016)).
Th e most important reason for which the talent identifi cation process is vital in the development of talented players is the environmental and contextual elements that surround the players are found to be essential factors associated with the success of talented athletes (Carlson, 1991;Hall, Kerr, Kozub, & Finnie, 2006;Stambulova, 2007).Th ere is an expectation that competitive environments lead to winning the most matches because of the oft en-high degree of players selected by the top-level clubs.However, such a focus on winning could have a negative eff ect on the players' development if the focus on a mastery climate (according to achievement goal theory) is not also included, since performance climate oft en promotes interpersonal competition, achieving results, and public recognition of the demonstration of skills (Ames, 1992).Some studies have suggested that introducing mastery-oriented criteria while simultaneously maintaining performance-oriented criteria will lead to an positive and eff ective motivational strategy that is equal to that entailed in focusing entirely on mastery criteria (Ommundsen & Roberts, 1999).It is important to stress that many of the participants in this study are not only at the development stage, but that they also compete in adult competitive football where the performance and competitive element is stronger (Ommundsen & Roberts, 1999).High personal pressure, especially from coaches, is one of the main challenges that may aff ect the development of youth football academy players (Richardson, Gilbourne, & Littlewood, 2004).
Such competitive environments are expected to select the best players at all times, giving them the most playing time, and again aff ecting the players' assessment of their own skills.Th e identifi ed players, especially by top-level clubs, are given obvious advantages in this selection system (Ashworth & Heyndels, 2007) even though there are many obstacles in this process (Larsen, Alfermann, Henriksen, & Christensen, 2013).Th ese environments are oft en characterized by high expectations, which might indicate that players may experience considerable personal pressure, especially from coaches.Several researchers have underlined the importance of high quality coach-athlete relationships in order to reduce stress, and to improve the performance and enjoyment of competitive experiences (Kristiansen & Roberts, 2010).Similarly, Rodahl and colleagues (Rodahl, Giske, Peters, & Høigaard, 2015) highlight the quality of the coach-athlete relationship as a signifi cant factor in enhancing mental toughness, which may subsequently increase the athlete's ability to cope with stress (Nicholls, 2011).Th e coach is of great importance for the development of young players (Carlson, 1991), and coaches' understanding of player development impacts the players' progression (Gagné, 2000;Martindale, Collins, & Abraham, 2007).
Well-established development environments for youth-level players are expected to provide talented players with feedback on their training in both the short-and long-term.An essential part of the theory of "deliberate practice", which has been indicated as a prerequisite for the development of expertise, is that feedback must be given at each training session (Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch-Römer, 1993).Th e content of this feedback must be seen as important, where feedback should be expected to be constructive and balancing the amount of praise and criticism.Earlier studies have highlighted that feedback during exercise is a common strategy recognized by most coaches (Potrac, Jones, & Cushion, 2007) even though little feedback is given aft er exercise, potentially aff ecting the players' ability to refl ect on their own skills (Partington & Cushion, 2013).Previous research also shows that the content of the feedback is essential for the players' further motivation and development (Cushion, Ford, & Williams, 2010;Ford, Yates, & Williams, 2010).
Th e most talented players selected for national youth teams are naturally expected to be the most likely to be future professional football players.Even so, most talented players never become professional players, despite their early-detected talent.Th us, the search for early indicators continues, hallmarking professional players early in their youth.Th e aim of the present study was to investigate player and coach characteristics for players CHARACTERISTICS OF PROFESSIONAL AND NON-PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL PLAYERS | S.A. SAETHER aged 14 to 16 who were selected for Norwegian age-specifi c national teams in 2007.Th e second aim was to compare the players who, in 2015 (eight years later) had gone on to play the game professionally as opposed to non-professional players.Th e use of future performance based on earlier data has been used as an appropriate way of collecting data (Höner & Feichtinger, 2016).

Methods
Participants Th e participants were drawn from three age cohorts of Norwegian players selected for a national youth team in June 2007.Th e players were born between 1991 and 1993, and represented U16, U15, and U14 teams.

Measures
Player characteristics.Th e questions used to assess player characteristics were single item questions intended to measure a range of topics labelled as player characteristics.Birth month was reported according to the four birth quartiles (January-March, etc.), and background was the number of sports the players were engaged in or have played and the ambitions they had according to the categories: international, national, fi rst division, etc. Th e estimated weekly amount of training sessions (organized and self-organized) was allocated to the categories: never, 1 day, 2-3 days, 4-5 days, etc. Playing time was categorized as: all matches, most matches, some matches, and few matches.Th e fi nal questions asked the players to respond to the statements, "I oft en succeed", and "I like to compete", and their answers were rated using a Likert scale that ranged from 1= fi ts well, 7= fi ts badly.
Coach characteristics.Th e questions used to assess the coach characteristics were single item questions intended to measure a range of topics labelled as coach characteristics.Using a Likert scale for their responses, ranging from 1= fi ts well, 7= fi ts badly, the players were asked four questions about their coach.Th ese questions were: "I oft en get praise from my coach", "I oft en get criticism from my coach when I am not succeeding", "only the best players get playing time", and "it is most important to win matches".

Procedures
Th e data were collected using a questionnaire among players selected for a national youth team.Before answering the questionnaire all the participants were informed about the purpose of the study, that their participation was voluntary, that the survey was anonymous, and that all information would be treated confi dentially.All players were provided with an information letter to be given to their parents.Th e study (ethics clearance) was in accordance with, and approved by the Norwegian Social Science Data Services.

Statistical Analysis
All analyses were conducted using SPSS version 21.0.Means and standard deviations were calculated for player characteristics and the coach-athlete relationship.Student's T-test was used to identify the diff erences between professional and non-professional players according to player characteristics and coach characteristics.Th e signifi cance level (alpha) was set to .05.

Results
Th e results showed that the professional and non-professional players were characterized by some similarities and some signifi cant diff erences.Th e non-professional players trained close to (<0.082) signifi cantly more self-organized ways, whereas the professional players trained signifi cantly more in organized settings.Th e professional players had signifi cantly higher ambitions, even though the non-professional players signifi cantly felt they oft en succeed and, close to signifi cantly (<0.083), had more playing time compared to the professional players.Furthermore, there were small diff erences in birth month, the number of sports they had participated in, and their fondness of competitions.
Th e players' relationships with their coaches seemed quite similar in terms of praise, although the professional players reported close to signifi cantly (<0.056) less criticism from their coaches.Overall, both groups of players reported more praise than criticism.Th ere was found to be no diff erence between their coaches' focus on the importance of winning matches and that only the best players got to play matches.Even so, according to the players the coaches had a higher focus on winning than letting only the best players play (mean 3.0 vs 2.35).

Discussion
Th is study examined players and their coaches' characteristics among a group of talented players aged 14-16 years, dividing the players between professional and non-professional players in an 8-year follow-up.Somewhat surprisingly, the professional players did not stand out from among as many of the variables as one could expect, in terms of their own characteristics or the characteristics of their coaches.
Most surprisingly, the non-professional players, almost signifi cantly had more playing time, indicating that these players were regarded as more talented than the professional players.Earlier studies have found connections between the players' perception of their own skills and their playing time (Saether et al., submitted).Th e results from this study could be seen as confi rmation of this relationship since the nonprofessional players also experienced signifi cantly (<0.05) more success in comparison to the professional players.Even if the relationship between skills at youth level and senior level is one of the most common assumptions (Durand-Bush & Salmela, 2001), the results from this study indicate that this relationship is not that strong, as earlier studies have also highlighted (Rees et al., 2016).Even if one could expect the relative age eff ect to be present in such high performance groups (Helsen et al., 2012), the eff ect was not signifi cantly diff erent between the professional and non-professional players.An obvious explanation could be that these groups of players have already been aff ected by this eff ect (Saether, 2015), and both groups had mean values approximately in the second quartile.Both groups were thereby aff ected by the relative age eff ect, but they did not diff er as groups.
According to the theory of deliberate practice, the players with the highest degree of deliberate practice will develop the best skills, assuming the players receive feedback from expert coaches, which is a prerequisite for the training to be described as deliberate practice (Ericsson et al., 1993).Since the professional players in this study trained signifi cantly more in organized setting than the non-professional players, this assumption could partly be confi rmed.However, the non-professional players trained close to signifi cantly more in self-organized settings, indicating that these players compensate with self-organized training.However, a recent study found no diff erences in training amount when comparing players that had obtained a senior professional contract with non-professional players did, indicating that this is a poor predictor of future success (Haugaasen et al., 2014a).From the players' overall training amount, one could argue that the main diff erence is the type of training (professional versus non-professional) is important, not the amount.
Talented football players are obliged to have great ambitions in regards to their football careers, which is also confi rmed by the professional players in this study, being signifi cantly more ambitious.Based on the fact that the non-professional players had the greatest amount of playing time and considered themselves to be more successful than the professional players, one could expect the non-professional players to be the most ambitious.An obvious explanation could be that the professional players were, in fact, more ambitious, and that this could be one reason as to why they became professional players.An earlier study examined the ambitions of talented players and found them to be very ambitious (Saether, 2013), although that study did not compare professional and non-professional players.Th is player' ambition could be expected to be accompanied by a sole focus on their main sport, but, at the time of the study, no diff erences were found in terms of the number of sports they had participated in.Th is was also confi rmed by an earlier study (Haugaasen et al., 2014a).
Based on previous studies on coach characteristics, one could expect the professional players to have a closer relationship with their coach, compared to the non-professional players.Th e players' relationships with their coaches seemed quite similar since, overall, both groups reported more praise than criticism.However, an essential diff erence was that the professional players reported close to signifi cantly less criticism from their coaches.Earlier studies have highlighted the potentially adverse eff ect of both too much feedback (Potrac et al., 2007) or a lack of feedback to the players (Partington & Cushion, 2013).Previous research also shows that the content of the feedback is essential for the players' further motivation and development (Cushion et al., 2010;Ford et al., 2010).
Even though the participants of this study were quite young, being part of a high-performance environment one could expect the focus on winning matches to be essential.However, the results showed no diff erences between the professional and non-professional players in terms of the focus on winning matches and only letting the best players play in the matches.Even so, according to the players, the coaches had a higher focus on results (winning) than on only giving attention to the best players (best players play).Pressure from coaches is a major challenge for youth-level players (Richardson et al., 2004).Th e coaches' focus in this respect would, of course, be of vital importance, potentially aff ecting the players' development.
In summary, these results could indicate that some of the player' characteristics are more essential in talent development than the coach-athlete relationship and the environment of which they are a part.It would, of course, be a mistake to draw such a conclusion.Even if the players did not diff er in their relationship to their coach, this could indicate that they were given a proper environment to develop as footballers.Since the nonprofessional players appeared to be considered more talented because of their playing time and their feelings of success compared to the professional players, one could expect these players to become professionals.Th e higher ambitions of the professional players could indicate that they were willing to give more to become professional players, and perhaps here lies the puzzle.We obviously need more research evidence to be able to test that hypothesis and to fi nd potential indicators to identify youth-level players.
In essence, this study only provides a snapshot of the players' characteristics, their coach relationship, and the environment they have been a part of.Talent development process must be seen as a long-term process, which is highlighted by this study, showing that the players need to be in an environment emphasizing development, to be able to achieve their potential goal of becoming a professional football player.Th is study cannot make any assertions about the characteristics of either the players or their coach relationship during the eightyear period.It can only indicate that there could be a relationship between the players' characteristics and their coach-athlete relationship, and them becoming professional or non-professional players.However, the results do indicate that the players assumed to be the most talented according to playing time and the players own assessment of their own success were not the players most lightly to end up as professional players.Th e two common characteristics of the players who became professional was their higher amount of organized training and their higher ambitions.Further studies need to be carried out to confi rm these fi ndings.

Declaration of Confl icting Interests
Th e author(s) declare no potential confl icts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.