Exploring Convergence and Divergence in Seemingly Contrasting Perspectives on Training Perceptual-Cognitive Abilities for Sports Performance Through Moderated Dialogue.

Current Opinion article considers the diverging perspectives of two academics on the trainability and role of perceptual-cognitive abilities in sports performance, specifically applied to agility and sidestepping. This work uses a moderated dialogue approach between these two authors, each representing differing viewpoints: one advocating for the role of perceptual-motor skills through representative learning environments and another emphasising physical resilience. The article explores how fostering scientific discourse through moderated questions posed by a third party can be used to identify convergences and divergences in these perspectives.

Experienced academy soccer coaches' perceptions of evaluating talented youth soccer players' skilfulness in small-sided games: a mixed-methods study.

Academy soccer coaches evaluate players' skilfulness to inform talent identification and development, focusing on technical proficiency, adaptability, decision-making, and influence. However, limited research has explored coaches' perceptions of skilfulness after completing an assessment. Furthermore, little is known about the potential overlap between current skill performance and future potential, or how coaches consider the skilfulness sub-dimensions.

An exploration of high-performance environments in esports: A preliminary model.

The professionalisation of esports has led to increased investment in high-performance environments. However, disparities in resources and infrastructure between major and minor regions remain a challenge to achieving competitive parity. We explored key success factors in elite esports environments and developed a preliminary conceptual model to capture the core elements identified.

Analytics of Pacing Development in Men's Sculling.

Aims: We described and compared performances and pacing strategy (PS) across sculling age groups and boat classes.

Methods: Over 10 years of Rowing World Championships data for the men's A and B finals of under-19, under-23, and senior in single (1×), double (2×), and quadruple (4×) sculls were analyzed.

Results: Velocity and stroke frequency (SF) were lower for younger athletes for all boat classes.

Evaluation of a goalkeeper-specific motor coordination assessment in youth football.

Talent identification and development (TID) in football can be enhanced through objective assessments of talent predictors. Yet, available instruments rarely consider the unique demands of goalkeepers (GKs). During early phases of talent development, considering a GK's giftedness relating to, for example, different abilities (e.

Visual Implicit Pre-Cueing Improves Response Time in Decision-Making in Dyslexic Children.

This study aimed to examine the effect of visual pre-cueing presented at different time intervals in the response time of dyslexic and non-dyslexic children. Fifteen dyslexic and 15 non-dyslexic children performed a computerised four-choice reaction time task across four conditions: no pre-cue and a 43-ms time interval (or duration) of a centralised dot appearing in the stimulus circle at 43, 86 or 129 ms prior to the stimulus. Each condition was repeated eight times, totaling 32 trials, and presented in a random order.

Exploring the Effects of Instruction and Game Design on Youth Soccer Players' Skill Involvement and Cooperative Team Behaviour.

: The relationship between task constraints and player behaviors is of interest to coaches tasked with designing practice to optimize learning. This study aims to compare the skill involvements and cooperative team behavior of teams of youth soccer players engaged in a goal exaggeration and/or a prescriptive coach instruction condition compared to a free-play control condition. : Twenty male soccer players aged 12-15 participated in small-sided games under four conditions: free-play, goal exaggeration, prescriptive coach instruction, and combination over four weeks.

There is No Supporting Evidence for a Far Transfer of General Perceptual or Cognitive Training to Sports Performance.

In this opinion piece I reiterate the concepts of near and far transfer as previously described in the psychological literature. I show that despite very limited evidence, many technologies, tools and methods make questionable claims of eliciting far transfer from generic perceptual and/or cognitive training to sports performance. Specifically, this commentary illustrates with studies on stroboscopic vision, neurofeedback training and executive functions that the claims made for the beneficial effects of these training methods are currently unsubstantiated.

Understanding the role of gaze behaviour and coaching experience in the assessment of youth soccer teams.

This study aimed to explore the perceptual-cognitive characteristics of coaches as they assessed team performance in youth soccer. The primary focus was to investigate the alignment between coaches' subjective analyses of team behaviour and objective analyses, while also examining the relationship between coaches' gaze behaviour and their levels of coaching experience, particularly considering the potential differences that may exist among coaches with varying levels of experience. Sixty-five male and female adults with various soccer coaching experience (experienced, novice, other team sport experience, and non-team sport experience) watched five 4-minute videos and assessed team behaviour.

Distinguishing skill from technique in football.

The current commentary adopts a skill acquisition science perspective on the distinction between skill and technique, two constructs often confused in football science and practice. It first positions technique as a coordination pattern. It then argues that experts rarely (if ever) coordinate their neuromuscular system in the same way through evidence of inter- and intra-individual movement variability from football science and other domains of sport science.

Experienced academy soccer coaches' perspectives on players' skilfulness.

Introduction: Soccer coaches are critical to academies as they are central to identifying players with the potential to succeed (i.e., talent).

Dynamical biomarkers in teams and other multiagent systems.

Effective team behavior in high-performance environments such as in sport and the military requires individual team members to efficiently perceive the unfolding task events, predict the actions and action intents of the other team members, and plan and execute their own actions to simultaneously accomplish individual and collective goals. To enhance team performance through effective cooperation, it is crucial to measure the situation awareness and dynamics of each team member and how they collectively impact the team's functioning. Further, to be practically useful for real-life settings, such measures must be easily obtainable from existing sensors.

The prevalence of relative age effects and the influence of the talent pool size on Australian male and female youth football.

The current study explored the association between talent pool size and relative age effects in Football Australia's talent pathway. It also compared relative age effects between male and female players. Participants were 54,207 youth football players (females:  = 12,527, age-range = 14.

Factors associated with cooperative network connectedness in a professional Australian football small-sided game.

Objectives: Connectedness is a cooperative network measure that describes how well players in the team bi-directionally connect and how easily reachable they are to other players. It has been associated with an increased probability of winning competitive matches in professional Australian Football (AF), although applications towards training have not been reported. Therefore, this study investigated associations between constraints manipulated by professional AF coaches and the connectedness of cooperative passing networks during a small-sided game (SSG).

Cooling strategies for firefighters: Effects on physiological, physical, and visuo-motor outcomes following fire-fighting tasks in the heat.

Objectives: Due to the nature of firefighting, most effective cooling interventions to reduce heat strain and optimise performance are not practically viable. This study quantified the effects of two practical cooling strategies, co-designed with subject-matter experts, on physiological strain and physical, perceptual, and visuo-motor performance during simulated firefighting in the heat.

Design: Randomised cross-over.

Collective behaviour in high and low-level youth soccer teams.

Background: An expert/non-expert paradigm often helps understand the underpinnings of sports expertise; however, this method is scarcely extended to the complexities of collective behaviour in youth soccer.

Aim: Therefore, the objectives of the current study are to investigate differences in the collective behaviour of youth soccer teams by expertise level.

Methodology: Soccer players aged 15 to 20 years from high (n = 35) and low (n = 40) playing levels competed in two age-matched 5v5 small-sided games.

Tactical analysis of individual and team behaviour in professional Australian Football.

Introduction: This study sought to reduce the dimensionality of commonly reported spatiotemporal characteristics obtained from Australian Football games to facilitate their practical use and interpretability.

Methods: A retrospective longitudinal design was utilised with team and individual spatiotemporal variables, measured via global navigation satellite system devices, collected during official Australian Football League matched over three seasons. Two separate principal component analyses were conducted at the team and individual level to reduce correlated spatiotemporal characteristics into a smaller set of uncorrelated components.

A holistic analysis of collective behaviour and team performance in Australian Football via structural equation modelling.

Despite awareness of the importance of quantifying technical, tactical, and physical characteristics of match play, few studies have examined the structural relationship of these aspects in professional sport. Accordingly, this study concurrently examined these components in relation to quarter outcome (n = 272) in Australian Football. The study followed a retrospective longitudinal case study design where one teams' cooperative passing network, skill counts, physical loads, and spatiotemporal behaviours during official Australian Football League games were collected from a period spanning four seasons (2016-2019).

The effect of stroboscopic vision on performance in a football specific assessment.

This study aimed to investigate how restricted visual feedback affects performance in a football-specific skills assessment that incorporates the coupling of football a-specific perceptual information with football-specific motor actions. The Footbonaut is a 14x14m cage equipped with 8 ball dispensers and 64 targets measuring passing accuracy and time to complete each pass. Eighty-four amateur male participants (19.

The confounding effect of biological maturity on talent identification and selection within youth Australian football.

This study measured the influence of biological maturity across numerous performance parameters for talent identification in Australian football. Anthropometry, estimated maturity status using a maturity ratio from anthropometric measurements and chronological age, motor competence, physical fitness and small-sided match involvements of 227 U13-U15 high-level academy athletes were assessed. Multivariate analysis of variance revealed significant moderate effects of maturity status on physical fitness (p = 0.

Skill assessments in youth soccer: A scoping review.

Talent identification in youth soccer is a complex decision-making process that requires selectors to judge an individual's future potential. While there has been considerable research into the performance characteristics of talented players, investigators have limited consensus on the best approach to assess soccer skills. Most of the research explains we should measure skill instead of we go about assessing skill.

Match simulation practice may not represent competitive match play in professional Australian football.

Match simulation in team sport should sample representative constraints and behaviours to those observed in competitive matches to enhance near skill transfer. This study compared task constraints (field length, field width, length per width ratio, space per player), time-standardised skill metrics (goals, shots on goal, handballs, kicks, marks, turnovers, tackles, handball proficiency, kick proficiency) and cooperative passing metrics (connectedness, indegree variability and outdegree variability) between match simulation practice and competitive Australian Football League (AFL) games for one professional team. MANOVAs identified activity-related differences for task constraints, skill metrics and cooperative passing networks.