The evaluation of the high peak of speed in footballers: Survey of all category from an amateur youth academy

Abstract

The analysis of youth football performance can help and increase the selection of talents and help coaches to work better during training, this can be possible with a multifactorial analysis of footballers using even specific hardware such as GPS, video-tracking and accelerometer. The aim of this study was to investigate the high peak speed (H.P.S) in youth football category and to determinate, how much times, footballers reach it during matches. Were analysed 120 athletes belonging to an amateur academy, 30 for each category U-12, U-14, U-16 and U-18. Was performed a sprint test on 30 meters in order to assess the average HPS, for each category from the academy, and in the end analyse how much the H.P.S is reached during one test match performed for every category. The sprint tests on 30 meters were performed using GPS 10Hz (K-Sport Universal, Montelabbate, Italy), each athlete repeats the test 3 times the best performance was selected. The calculation of the average events for players during matches (AE-P) was calculated dividing the HPS events by the numbers of players (9 for U-12, 11 for U-14, U-16 and U-18). Results shows of events upper the H.P.S are growing exponentially by U-16 to U-18, with a difference of 72%. The AE-P shows in average how much events are expected by players; no particular difference was showed from U-12 to U-16 (with a value starting from 0,5 and a maximum of 0,6 events). In the U-18 the events exponentially grow and reach the value of 1,3. All the results let to assume that the maturation ratio in the academy, influence the variations and differences in the results. The analysing of the PPM even for young footballers can be the way to rationalize performance evaluation, as regards the study of H.P.S between category, it can provide useful information to evaluate, predict and help the talents research.