plyo program

[James_Smith]

@svincenz

James,
I think we continue to disagree, to a certain extent, and there’s nothing bad in it.
I have vast experience with soccer in the European system and I don’t think until 14-16 yo a strong talent identification is possible. Of course it depends on the margins of errors you include in your talent identification, but let’s say, in muscular soccer like the one played nowadays, you are inclined to favour certain morpho-biomechanics features. Just to drop a couple of names, Xavi and Iniesta, two of the best players around, would be easily and rapidly discarded. Their abilities (like reading the game, big personality etc.) would be identifiable clearly in middle to late teenage years. In addition, if we refer to young guys (8-10 yo), they will play with adults in maybe 8-10 years, which is a pretty long time-frame during which game dynamics can dramatically change. In the 100 m dash the distance does not change, but even in that discipline, people taller than 1.92-1.94 would be considered due to Bolt’s success,while maybe ten years they would have been directed toward other disciplines as they lacked the proper (at that time!) morpho-biomechanics.

As for the support of graphologist, that is very interesting and I’m a little bit informed. The question is: does the degree of accuracy change in teenage years, where personality is not fully formed and subject to less predictable changes than in later years?

As we get deeper into the discussion, I think we agree much more than we disagree.

Now that specific age ranges and developmental levels are being addressed I think we are very much in agreement.

My interest in talent identification only applies to doing so when the time is right, which differs based upon sport structure and biological maturity rates, in order to subvert mistakenly premature exclusion/misdirection.