Identifying talent in football players

Abstract

Identifying the elements that define a talented football player has been and is still the subject of numerousscientific papers. However, in terms of the role played by the coach in identifying and developing player talent, veryfew studies have been found. Based on these premises, the paper presented here aims to establish, from anempirical perspective, the elements that condition and define a talented footballer player based on the opinionof the coach. Using a non-experimental, descriptive, empirical research design, an evaluation questionnairewas prepared and sent to a total of 890 coaches and trainers affiliated to the Football Federation of Andalusia.The results obtained classify the traits of talented football players into the following factors: physical-environmentalconditioning factors, interpersonal relations, personality factors, teamwork competencies, decision-making, tacticaltechnical abilities, and expectations of success.