Football

Introduction: Psychological factors can be important for the physical performance of developing female football players, but research is needed to assess their impact. Objective: To determine the effectiveness of a motivational psychological intervention strategy to improve physical performance in female U-15 football players from a football school in Zone 8 of Guayaquil, Ecuador. Method: Pre-experimental design with a single group and pretest-posttest measurements. Thirty football players participated. For the evaluation of the motivational climate, the PMCSQ-2 was used, while the YYIR1 and the Cooper Test were the instruments employed to assess physical performance. The intervention consisted of 12 sessions of 45 minutes over six weeks. The Shapiro-Wilk test was applied and then the Student's t-test for dependent samples. Results: The overall PMCSQ-2 score did not show statistically significant changes (t(29) = −1.37; p = 0.182; d = −0.250). On the contrary, statistically significant differences with large effect sizes were found for both the YYIR1 (t(29) = −16.08; p < 0.001; d = −2.936) and the Cooper Test (t(29) = −19.54; p < 0.001; d = −3.567). Discussion: Improvements are evident in the evaluated physical indicators, without significant changes in the overall motivational score. This divergence indicates that the physical response and the perception of the motivational climate do not always develop at the same pace. Conclusions: The intervention was associated with significant improvements in physical performance, which supports its application in youth women's football.

The effectiveness of young football players’ athletic training is determined by the interaction of physical, technical, tactical, theoretical, integrated, and psychological components. In team sports, communicative and organizational inclinations are of particular importance as psychological prerequisites for effective interaction and the realization of leadership potential. Purpose. To identify and compare the age-related characteristics of communicative and organizational inclinations in young football players and to determine their role in the implementation of leadership functions in team activities. Materials and methods. To achieve the aim of the study, an analysis was conducted analysis of scientific and methodological literature, comparison, psychological assessment using the «Assessment of Communicative and Organizational Inclinations» by V. V. Sinyavskyi and B. O. Fedorishyn, and methods of mathematical statistics, including the Kruskal–Wallis test. The study involved three groups of football players (n=108): aged 9–10 (n=33), 13–14 (n=37), and 16–17 years (n=38) from Children and Youth Sports Schools in Kyiv.Results. Significant individual variability in the indicators was established. Communicative inclinations were found to be more developed than organizational inclinations. Their mean values were 3.00±1.58, 2.92±1.40, and 3.21±1.45 points, respectively, across the three age groups, while organizational inclinations were 2.03±1.33, 2.24±1.42, and 2.34±1.38 points. The oldest group demonstrated a higher proportion of athletes with high and very high levels of communicative inclinations, whereas a low level predominated in organizational inclinations across all age groups. No statistically significant age-related differences were found in communicative (H=0.75; p=0.69) or organizational inclinations (H=1.11; p=0.57). Conclusions. Communicative and organizational inclinations are important psychological prerequisites, but not direct indicators, of leadership function implementation. The communicative component creates prerequisites for information, motivational, mediating, and representative functions, while the organizational component contributes to planning, coordination, and responsibility-taking. The findings support the need for targeted development of these characteristics and the application of distributed leadership principles.

Introduction: In children's football, attentional concentration is fundamental, as it allows for the selection of relevant stimuli and an effective response to the changing situations of the game. Objective: To evaluate the effects of a training program based on the Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU) model on attentional concentration in football players aged 9 to 11 from the Santa Elena Cantonal Sports League. Method: A pre-experimental single-group design study was conducted, with pre-test and post-test measurements on 30 child football players. The d2 and Toulouse-Piéron tests, an observation guide, and the Wilcoxon signed-rank test were used. Results: The overall score of the d2 increased from 117 ± 16.3 to 139 ± 16.9, while the Toulouse-Piéron score increased from 152.40 ± 25.15 to 175.90 ± 25.86. The processed response times in the d2 increased from 366 ± 28.7 to 401 ± 31.7, and the number of errors in the Toulouse-Piéron decreased from 10.17 ± 3.40 to 7.07 ± 3.86. The differences between pre and post-test were statistically significant (p < 0.001). The expert evaluation showed a high level of agreement (W = 0.89; p < 0.001). Discussion: The results indicate that TGfU promotes attentional concentration through game situations that integrate perception, decision-making, and motor execution. Conclusion: The program generated improvements in the evaluated indicators and constitutes a structured pedagogical alternative for cognitive-motor training in formative football.

Background Perceived social support is an important psychosocial resource for competitive athletes, while perceived stress is closely associated with athlete burnout. Drawing on conservation of resources theory and the cognitive-transactional model of stress, this study examines the relationships among perceived social support, perceived stress, and athlete burnout. Objectives This study aims to investigate the associations among perceived social support, perceived stress, and athlete burnout in competitive athletes, with particular attention to the statistical mediating role of perceived stress. Results Using cluster sampling, questionnaire data were collected from 252 competitive athletes across various sports, including track and field, swimming, and football. The results showed that perceived social support was negatively correlated with perceived stress ( r = -0.478, p < 0.01) and athlete burnout ( r = -0.282, p < 0.01), whereas perceived stress was positively correlated with athlete burnout ( r = 0.421, p < 0.01). Mediation analysis revealed a significant indirect association between perceived social support and athlete burnout through perceived stress ( B = -0.161, 95% CI [-0.240, -0.093]). The direct association was not statistically significant after accounting for perceived stress ( B = -0.095, p = 0.109). Conclusion Perceived social support is associated with lower levels of athlete burnout, both through its overall negative association with burnout and through a significant statistical indirect pathway involving perceived stress. These findings highlight the importance of strengthening athletes’ social support systems and addressing perceived stress in competitive sports settings. Given the cross-sectional design, the findings should be interpreted as associations rather than evidence of causal mediation.

This qualitative case study examined how selected coaches, parents, adolescent athletes, and local sport-organization representatives described restrictions on concurrent participation in football and futsal in Blitar City. The core sample comprised two coaches, four parents, and four athletes aged 14–15 years; the archived manuscript did not retain the exact number of federation representatives, so the total sample requires verification. Data sources included semi-structured interviews, observations, and selected organizational documents collected mainly from late February to April 2026. A Miles–Huberman–Saldaña data-management cycle supported thematic comparison of purposively selected contrasting cases. Participants described two broad orientations: restriction justified by perceived injury, workload, schedule, and technical concerns; and conditional support based on coordinated schedules and perceived complementary practice. Restricted athletes described reduced autonomy, secrecy, anxiety, exhaustion, and diminished accomplishment, whereas permitted athletes described more open communication and perceived technical benefits. These are participant-reported experiences, not clinical burnout diagnoses or objective evidence of skill transfer. Calendar overlap was identified as a perceived institutional pressure, but the underlying event-level schedule evidence was not retained in the manuscript. The contrasting-case sampling may have amplified the two-orientation pattern. Ethics approval, parental permission, adolescent assent, and the number of organizational informants must be confirmed from original records before publication.

این مطالعه موردی کیفی به بررسی توصیفات مربیان منتخب، والدین، ورزشکاران نوجوان و نمایندگان سازمان‌های ورزشی محلی درباره محدودیت‌های مشارکت همزمان در فوتبال و فوتسال در شهر بلیتر پرداخت. نمونه اصلی شامل دو مربی، چهار والد و چهار ورزشکار ۱۴ تا ۱۵ ساله بود؛ نسخه بایگانی‌شده مقاله تعداد دقیق نمایندگان فدراسیون را حفظ نکرده است، بنابراین مجموع نمونه نیازمند تأیید است. منابع داده شامل مصاحبه‌های نیمه‌ساختاریافته، مشاهدات و اسناد منتخب سازمانی بود که عمدتاً از اواخر فوریه تا آوریل ۲۰۲۶ جمع‌آوری شد. چرخه مدیریت داده Miles–Huberman–Saldaña برای مقایسه موضوعی موارد متضاد انتخاب‌شده به صورت هدفمند به کار رفت. مشارکت‌کنندگان دو رویکرد کلی را توصیف کردند: محدودیت با توجیه نگرانی‌های ادراک‌شده درباره آسیب، بارکاری، برنامه زمانی و مسائل فنی؛ و حمایت مشروط بر اساس هماهنگی برنامه‌ها و تمرین مکمل ادراک‌شده. ورزشکاران محدودشده کاهش خودمختاری، پنهان‌کاری، اضطراب، خستگی و کاهش احساس موفقیت را گزارش کردند، در حالی که ورزشکاران مجاز به مشارکت، ارتباط بازتر و منافع فنی ادراک‌شده را بیان نمودند. این‌ها تجارب گزارش‌شده توسط مشارکت‌کنندگان هستند و نه تشخیص بالینی فرسودگی شغلی یا شواهد عینی انتقال مهارت. همپوشانی تقویمی به عنوان فشار نهادی ادراک‌شده شناسایی شد، اما شواهد برنامه‌ریزی رویدادها در سطح زیرین در مقاله حفظ نشده است. نمونه‌گیری موارد متضاد ممکن است الگوی دو رویکرد را تقویت کرده باشد. تأییدیه اخلاقی، اجازه والدین، رضایت نوجوانان و تعداد مطلعان سازمانی باید پیش از انتشار از سوابق اصلی تأیید شود.

The relative age effect (RAE) — the overrepresentation of players born early in the selection year — is one of the most robust findings in sports science, yet how much it varies across countries and over time remains surprisingly underexplored. Drawing on birth-date data for 49,578 male professional footballers across 44 national systems and five birth cohorts (1985–2009), this study describes three patterns that have not previously been examined together. RAE magnitude varies enormously across national football systems, ranging from close to zero to birth-quarter gaps exceeding 40 percentage points. It has also increased across successive birth cohorts: players born in 2005–2009 show birth-quarter imbalances roughly 9 percentage points wider than those born in 1985–1989. Common macro-level indicators — national footballing strength, gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, and population — show at most weak and inconsistent associations with cross-national differences in RAE and do not account for the historical increase once country and cohort are held fixed. Together, these findings provide a comparative benchmark for understanding cross-national and historical variation in relative age effects.

اثر سن نسبی (RAE) ــ که به معنای بیش‌نمایی بازیکنانی است که در اوایل سال انتخاب متولد شده‌اند ــ یکی از یافته‌های بسیار پایدار در علم ورزش است، اما میزان تفاوت آن در میان کشورها و در طول زمان، به طرز شگفت‌آوری کمتر مورد بررسی قرار گرفته است. با استفاده از داده‌های تاریخ تولد ۴۹٬۵۷۸ بازیکن مرد فوتبال حرفه‌ای در ۴۴ نظام ملی و پنج گروه تولد (۱۹۸۵ تا ۲۰۰۹)، این مطالعه سه الگو را توصیف می‌کند که پیش‌تر به طور همزمان بررسی نشده‌اند. شدت RAE در نظام‌های ملی فوتبال به طور قابل توجهی متفاوت است و از نزدیک به صفر تا اختلاف بیش از ۴۰ درصدی بین فصل‌های تولد متغیر است. همچنین این شدت در گروه‌های تولد متوالی افزایش یافته است: بازیکنانی که در سال‌های ۲۰۰۵ تا ۲۰۰۹ متولد شده‌اند، عدم تعادل فصل تولد را تقریباً ۹ درصد بیشتر از متولدین ۱۹۸۵ تا ۱۹۸۹ نشان می‌دهند. شاخص‌های کلان‌سطحی رایج ــ قدرت فوتبال ملی، تولید ناخالص داخلی (GDP) سرانه و جمعیت ــ در بهترین حالت ارتباطی ضعیف و ناسازگار با تفاوت‌های فراملی در RAE نشان می‌دهند و زمانی که کشور و گروه تولد ثابت نگه داشته می‌شوند، افزایش تاریخی را توضیح نمی‌دهند. این یافته‌ها معیاری تطبیقی برای درک تفاوت‌های فراملی و تاریخی در اثر سن نسبی فراهم می‌آورد.

Previous research highlighted the prospect of releasing players was a stressor for academy coaches, but academy staff members’ perspectives on the release process remain unexplored. Therefore, this study aimed to explore academy staff members’ experiences and perspectives of the release process from professional football academies. Semi-structured interviews (duration: 59–114 min; M ± SD = 85 ± 14 min) were conducted with 18 staff members (coaching staff, n = 8; support staff, n = 10) currently working in professional football club academies in the UK. Data were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis, with themes developed from the interviews relating to: “realistically holding on to the dream in the academy system,” “the complexities of making and communicating decisions in the release process,” “the contract meeting -‘it’s the worst part of the job’” and “staff roles and dynamics in the aftercare process.” Staff highlighted a lack of good practice and need for guidelines around conducting contract meetings. Participants outlined potential issues with aftercare provided for released players and offered possible solutions, such as a centralized aftercare support program. Good practice recommendations have been provided with regards to the release process, including how to deliver the release news within contract meetings and aftercare provision. These recommendations can assist the release strategies of professional football club academies and organizations.

پژوهش‌های پیشین نشان داده‌اند که احتمال رهایی بازیکنان، یکی از عوامل استرس‌زا برای مربیان آکادمی‌ها است، اما دیدگاه‌های اعضای کادر آکادمی درباره فرایند رهایی همچنان ناشناخته باقی مانده است. بنابراین، هدف این مطالعه بررسی تجارب و دیدگاه‌های اعضای کادر آکادمی نسبت به فرایند رهایی از آکادمی‌های فوتبال حرفه‌ای بود. مصاحبه‌های نیمه‌ساختاریافته (مدت زمان: ۵۹ تا ۱۱۴ دقیقه؛ میانگین ± انحراف معیار = ۸۵ ± ۱۴ دقیقه) با ۱۸ نفر از اعضای کادر (کادر مربیگری، n = 8؛ کادر پشتیبانی، n = 10) که در حال حاضر در آکادمی‌های باشگاه‌های فوتبال حرفه‌ای در بریتانیا فعالیت می‌کنند، انجام شد. داده‌ها با استفاده از تحلیل تماتیک بازتابی مورد تجزیه‌و‌تحلیل قرار گرفت و تم‌هایی که از مصاحبه‌ها استخراج شد شامل: «حفظ واقع‌بینانه رؤیا در نظام آکادمی»، «پیچیدگی‌های اتخاذ و ابلاغ تصمیمات در فرایند رهایی»، «جلسه قرارداد - 'بدترین بخش کار است'» و «نقش‌ها و پویایی‌های کادر در فرایند مراقبت پس از رهایی» بود. اعضای کادر به کمبود رویه‌های مناسب و نیاز به دستورالعمل‌هایی برای برگزاری جلسات قرارداد اشاره کردند. شرکت‌کنندگان به مسائل احتمالی در مراقبت پس از رهایی بازیکنان اشاره کردند و راه‌حل‌هایی مانند برنامه متمرکز حمایت پس از رهایی را پیشنهاد دادند. توصیه‌هایی برای بهبود رویه‌های رهایی، از جمله نحوه اعلام خبر رهایی در جلسات قرارداد و ارائه مراقبت پس از رهایی، ارائه شده است. این توصیه‌ها می‌تواند به راهبردهای رهایی آکادمی‌ها و سازمان‌های فوتبال حرفه‌ای کمک کند.