Influence of Biological Maturity on the Match Performance of 8- to 16-Year-Old, Elite, Male, Youth Soccer Players

Goto, H, Morris, JG, and Nevill, ME. Influence of biological maturity on the match performance of 8- to 16-year-old, elite, male, youth soccer players. J Strength Cond Res 33(11): 3078–3084, 2019—The aim of this study was to examine the influence of biological maturity on match performance in elite, youth, male soccer players. The participants were 80 Premier League Academy outfield players (8–16 years old). Biological maturity was determined by calculating estimated chronological age at peak height velocity. The U9 and U10 squads played 6-a-side and the U11-U16 squads played 11-a-side interacademy matches. All matches were analyzed using a 1-Hz global positioning system (SPI Elite™, GPSports, Canberra, Australia) with squad-specific speed zones, which were calculated based on 5-m flying sprint speed in the last 5 m of 10-m sprint test. In the U9/U10s, earlier maturers were given a longer pitch time by coaches (∼4 minutes per match; p = 0.029) and covered a greater total distance (∼9%; ∼400 m; p = 0.037) and a greater distance by walking (∼13%; ∼100 m; p = 0.024) and jogging (∼12%; ∼200 m; p = 0.014) during a match compared with later maturers. In the U13/U14s, earlier maturers covered a greater distance per hour of a match by high-speed running compared with later maturers (∼25%; ∼130 m; p = 0.028) and spent a longer percentage of time in high-speed running during a match compared with later maturers (3.4% vs. 2.7%, p = 0.034). Thus, coaches should ...
Source: Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research - Category: Sports Medicine Tags: Original Research Source Type: research