Talangidentifiering – Frånförsta kontakt till signeratkontrakt. : En intervjustudie angåendefotbollstränares och ledares syn påtalangidentifiering inomStockholmsdistrikt.

Sammanfattning: Talent identification and selection, a constant ongoing process in sports worldwide. It’s one of the keyfactors to how children become professional athletes but can also be a factor to why children quit sports.The purpose of this study was to provide knowledge about what is required for talent identification andselection in youth football. The following questions were addressed in the study; How do coaches definetalent and which criteria do they use in the selection process? How well do the coaches understand thecriteria, and in what way do they apply them during the identification process? Are there factors thatdiffer as well as factors that are important for coaches to acknowledge in identification betweenchildren and teens? What is the knowledge regarding Relative Age Effect and how much do coachespay attention to it? This study was done at the request of the Swedish Football Association, through aqualitative method of seven semi structured interviews with football coaches who had experience in therealms of football academies. The results demonstrated that coaches have different perspectives. Fourintegral parts were presented by the respondents which are psychological aspects, physical aspects,technical ability and play intelligence. The standout part was the psychological aspect, where all coachesstated that a player’s mentality decides if they will play professional football or not. The psychologicalaspect was also the one part that differed in the identification process between children and teens. Theability to react well to failure is something that was only observable in teens. Furthermore, the coacheswere all aware of Relative Age Effect and there were different ways of how it affected their organizations,the district teams had the most developed system to work with Relative Age Effect through Future Team.To conclude, talent identification criteria is often based upon the coaches’ own experiences andpreferences, which could be to their benefit but if coaches don’t have the adequate knowledge to handleeach individual talent, it could lead to children quitting sports before they reach their full potential.Coaches will need higher education to make better decisions and to gain a better understanding aboutselection, the challenges that follow but also which possibilities it creates.