Study done in UK https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/6e77/4ecd023278ede2b66d9476b2e1de499f9998.pdf
Findings of the study suggest that the brother and Father played the most important role in them becoming elite soccer players. Especially Fathers that were knowledgeable about the development process of the sport like coaches, played a major role in the development of an elite female youth player. Could a female become an elite player without the presence of the Father figure? While there is no mention of the Mother, the Mother would need to also posses the specialized knowledge of the Father. Agree or disagree? Interesting findings
Summary of findings:
The CSA of events found that between ages 6-10, the brother and father of the developing player were important for initiating play in football. In addition, the
father was important for encouraging play in football and peers were important for
facilitating play in football.
Between the ages of 10 – 12, competition against male 2 counter parts was important for developing football specific attributes.
Ages 12 – 14
offered the female players the opportunity to enter organised female-only football and provided them with the opportunity to “stand out” amongst other female players.
However, players also thought that they developed the least in their formal football
development during this period. This was related to being no longer allowed to compete against male players in matches, even though they did still play against male players in unsupervised games.
Between the ages of 14 – 17, involvement in organised female football (consistently with junior squads of WPL teams) was seen as important as this provided the opportunity to stand out against other female players, thus providing opportunity for entry to international level. During these ages, the increased commitment, discipline and sacrificing a “normal teenage life” was central to continued development and ‘non – football friends’ were important in assisting this process outside football.
Between 17 – 19 years, further increased commitment was noted through sacrificing elements of what players referred to as a “normal late teens / early adult life” (such as refraining from having a boyfriend / girlfriend, and from drinking alcohol). Players also noted an increased attention to, value of, and actioning of, the technical advice provided by coaches, experienced fathers and experienced brothers.
Finally, this was the age range where players began to use different psychological skills
(e.g. self-talk, goal-setting, imagery) more frequently.
Throughout all age ranges, the
father and brother acted as role models, a source of football inspiration and important
providers of informational support. Furthermore, emotional and tangible support from
family members was viewed as central to continued involvement and development as a player. Enjoyment and perceived competence were important for initiating and continued participation, with perceived competence also being seen as a factor in improving as a football player. Finally, social support from peers was an important factor in maintaining participation.
Football-fathers
A meaningful developmental influence from the earliest age of playing football (6 - 10 years) and throughout the playing career was each player’s biological father. Corroborating previous football-specific findings from elite youth male players, the football-father provided tangible support in the form of transport and finances. Michelle and Lisa pointed out that their fathers “took them everywhere” to play football, whereas Beth pointed out that her father provided finances for kit, such as buying her new boots. All players highlighted that their fathers watched a lot of their football which they felt was a sign that their fathers were interested in their development and this fostered positive father – child relationships.
To our knowledge, a finding unique to this study was that each football-father had a current or previous role within professional football either as a player, or a coach,
or both. Most meaningful from a talent development perspective was that, as a result of their fathers’ experiences in football, players had access to high quality informational support. Informational support provides individuals with advice or guidance about possible solutions to problems (Holt & Dunn, 2004). Each player reported this as significant in their development and told a story about how their father had helped them to develop as a player. Michelle had an interesting relationship as her father was also her football coach when she was younger.
“My dad coached weekends when I was growing up and he took me with him...It was quite nice being coached by my dad as I was growing up. Sometimes you’ll get coaches that don’t really know how to handle you, but because he was my dad as well, he knew how to handle me. He knew what I wanted from football; he knew how I learnt things best so all that really helped me learn as a player”
Lisa discussed how she respected her father’s playing experience and how his
understanding of his daughter helped to contribute to her development as a football
player: “...he was always taking me to the park and having a kick about with me and
then I found out that he was quite a good player in his day. He was at [professional clubs] but then had to retire because of injury. He knows his stuff to be fair and he is always my worst critic but it’s good cos he knows me and knows how I work, so if I’ve played bad and come off the pitch in a mood, he knows how to deal with me and talks to me about stuff I can do to improve.”
After moving to a new club (at the highest level of women’s football in England), Beth
discussed how her father has helped to develop her and also provides an insight into
how her father’s behaviour has changed towards her during the more recent stages her career: “My dad is always honest with me about how I’m going. It’s really important to me as obviously he knows a lot about football being a former player and now coaching, and for him to talk to me about what I need to do is only going to push
me on further. As I’ve got older the type of advice he gives me has got more technical... Now that I’m playing at a higher level, I’ve learned technical... Now that I’m playing at a higher level, I’ve learned more about the
game and we can now talk much more in – depth about it and it’s like me and
my dad are talking about how I can improve now rather than my dad just telling
me what I’ve done right or wrong and how I can improve. My dad always like
asks me now what the coach has said to me in my reviews too...I know how hard it is going to be to get into the [senior international team], so my dad is always helping me understand what’s been said and encouraging me to listen to what my coach has said. It’s good with my dad now cos I don’t ever get a lie out of him now about football. ”
This provides an important extension to previous football parenting literature which highlighted that more competent parents of female football players were able to have effective performance-related discussions with their children post competition
As these players’ careers progressed, they perceived their fathers to increase the quality of informational support given to match the requirements of the player and players placed great emphasis on this because of the professional experiences of their fathers. In attempt to explain player-level benefits of this, based on the fact that these football fathers were essentially coach-fathers, we examined the sports coaching (e.g. Ford et al., 2010), pedagogy (e.g. Hubball & Robertson, 2004) and parenting literature. From this, we surmised that these coach-fathers were enhancing the development of their daughter-players by creating an effective learning environment
using techniques acquired through their playing experience and / or coach education.
Due to the positive father-daughter relationships reported by players we argue that the developmental impact of fathers was greater given the motivational influence that parents exert (Gershgoren, Tenenbaum, Gershgoren & Eklund, 2011).
The informational support from the father occasionally differed from the advice
that was being provided by the coach. Given the experience and knowledge of the
fathers in this study, this sometimes became a source of internal conflict for the players
as they were unsure of which advice to follow. Importantly, the football fathers
encouraged the players to follow the advice provided by the coaches rather than their
own as the advice of the coach would tie in with the needs of the team. For example,
during a conversation after a game where Michelle had immediately gone to speak to
her father about her performance, I asked Michelle how she felt about her dad speaking to her about her performance after games. She offered the following observations: As I’ve got older and moved to [current team] my dad still talks to me about
how I can improve cos he still watches all of my games when he isn’t coaching. I always take my dad’s advice on-board but whenever my dad says something different to my coach, he will always be like ‘take your coach’s advice because you play for them, you don’t play for me now’. This helped me to understand a bit more about why I needed to listen to my coach and sorta made me value what they said more.”
Findings of the study suggest that the brother and Father played the most important role in them becoming elite soccer players. Especially Fathers that were knowledgeable about the development process of the sport like coaches, played a major role in the development of an elite female youth player. Could a female become an elite player without the presence of the Father figure? While there is no mention of the Mother, the Mother would need to also posses the specialized knowledge of the Father. Agree or disagree? Interesting findings
Summary of findings:
The CSA of events found that between ages 6-10, the brother and father of the developing player were important for initiating play in football. In addition, the
father was important for encouraging play in football and peers were important for
facilitating play in football.
Between the ages of 10 – 12, competition against male 2 counter parts was important for developing football specific attributes.
Ages 12 – 14
offered the female players the opportunity to enter organised female-only football and provided them with the opportunity to “stand out” amongst other female players.
However, players also thought that they developed the least in their formal football
development during this period. This was related to being no longer allowed to compete against male players in matches, even though they did still play against male players in unsupervised games.
Between the ages of 14 – 17, involvement in organised female football (consistently with junior squads of WPL teams) was seen as important as this provided the opportunity to stand out against other female players, thus providing opportunity for entry to international level. During these ages, the increased commitment, discipline and sacrificing a “normal teenage life” was central to continued development and ‘non – football friends’ were important in assisting this process outside football.
Between 17 – 19 years, further increased commitment was noted through sacrificing elements of what players referred to as a “normal late teens / early adult life” (such as refraining from having a boyfriend / girlfriend, and from drinking alcohol). Players also noted an increased attention to, value of, and actioning of, the technical advice provided by coaches, experienced fathers and experienced brothers.
Finally, this was the age range where players began to use different psychological skills
(e.g. self-talk, goal-setting, imagery) more frequently.
Throughout all age ranges, the
father and brother acted as role models, a source of football inspiration and important
providers of informational support. Furthermore, emotional and tangible support from
family members was viewed as central to continued involvement and development as a player. Enjoyment and perceived competence were important for initiating and continued participation, with perceived competence also being seen as a factor in improving as a football player. Finally, social support from peers was an important factor in maintaining participation.
Football-fathers
A meaningful developmental influence from the earliest age of playing football (6 - 10 years) and throughout the playing career was each player’s biological father. Corroborating previous football-specific findings from elite youth male players, the football-father provided tangible support in the form of transport and finances. Michelle and Lisa pointed out that their fathers “took them everywhere” to play football, whereas Beth pointed out that her father provided finances for kit, such as buying her new boots. All players highlighted that their fathers watched a lot of their football which they felt was a sign that their fathers were interested in their development and this fostered positive father – child relationships.
To our knowledge, a finding unique to this study was that each football-father had a current or previous role within professional football either as a player, or a coach,
or both. Most meaningful from a talent development perspective was that, as a result of their fathers’ experiences in football, players had access to high quality informational support. Informational support provides individuals with advice or guidance about possible solutions to problems (Holt & Dunn, 2004). Each player reported this as significant in their development and told a story about how their father had helped them to develop as a player. Michelle had an interesting relationship as her father was also her football coach when she was younger.
“My dad coached weekends when I was growing up and he took me with him...It was quite nice being coached by my dad as I was growing up. Sometimes you’ll get coaches that don’t really know how to handle you, but because he was my dad as well, he knew how to handle me. He knew what I wanted from football; he knew how I learnt things best so all that really helped me learn as a player”
Lisa discussed how she respected her father’s playing experience and how his
understanding of his daughter helped to contribute to her development as a football
player: “...he was always taking me to the park and having a kick about with me and
then I found out that he was quite a good player in his day. He was at [professional clubs] but then had to retire because of injury. He knows his stuff to be fair and he is always my worst critic but it’s good cos he knows me and knows how I work, so if I’ve played bad and come off the pitch in a mood, he knows how to deal with me and talks to me about stuff I can do to improve.”
After moving to a new club (at the highest level of women’s football in England), Beth
discussed how her father has helped to develop her and also provides an insight into
how her father’s behaviour has changed towards her during the more recent stages her career: “My dad is always honest with me about how I’m going. It’s really important to me as obviously he knows a lot about football being a former player and now coaching, and for him to talk to me about what I need to do is only going to push
me on further. As I’ve got older the type of advice he gives me has got more technical... Now that I’m playing at a higher level, I’ve learned technical... Now that I’m playing at a higher level, I’ve learned more about the
game and we can now talk much more in – depth about it and it’s like me and
my dad are talking about how I can improve now rather than my dad just telling
me what I’ve done right or wrong and how I can improve. My dad always like
asks me now what the coach has said to me in my reviews too...I know how hard it is going to be to get into the [senior international team], so my dad is always helping me understand what’s been said and encouraging me to listen to what my coach has said. It’s good with my dad now cos I don’t ever get a lie out of him now about football. ”
This provides an important extension to previous football parenting literature which highlighted that more competent parents of female football players were able to have effective performance-related discussions with their children post competition
As these players’ careers progressed, they perceived their fathers to increase the quality of informational support given to match the requirements of the player and players placed great emphasis on this because of the professional experiences of their fathers. In attempt to explain player-level benefits of this, based on the fact that these football fathers were essentially coach-fathers, we examined the sports coaching (e.g. Ford et al., 2010), pedagogy (e.g. Hubball & Robertson, 2004) and parenting literature. From this, we surmised that these coach-fathers were enhancing the development of their daughter-players by creating an effective learning environment
using techniques acquired through their playing experience and / or coach education.
Due to the positive father-daughter relationships reported by players we argue that the developmental impact of fathers was greater given the motivational influence that parents exert (Gershgoren, Tenenbaum, Gershgoren & Eklund, 2011).
The informational support from the father occasionally differed from the advice
that was being provided by the coach. Given the experience and knowledge of the
fathers in this study, this sometimes became a source of internal conflict for the players
as they were unsure of which advice to follow. Importantly, the football fathers
encouraged the players to follow the advice provided by the coaches rather than their
own as the advice of the coach would tie in with the needs of the team. For example,
during a conversation after a game where Michelle had immediately gone to speak to
her father about her performance, I asked Michelle how she felt about her dad speaking to her about her performance after games. She offered the following observations: As I’ve got older and moved to [current team] my dad still talks to me about
how I can improve cos he still watches all of my games when he isn’t coaching. I always take my dad’s advice on-board but whenever my dad says something different to my coach, he will always be like ‘take your coach’s advice because you play for them, you don’t play for me now’. This helped me to understand a bit more about why I needed to listen to my coach and sorta made me value what they said more.”
