Creating a shared mental model of performance: Coaches’ perspectives of key position-specific soccer actions

Important decisions surrounding talent identification (TID), talent development (TD) and (de)selection within elite youth soccer are often grounded in the subjective opinions of coaches. These opinions often stem from coaches’ observations of player performance, which have been shown to be susceptible to several biases. Additionally, previous research has failed to establish specific criteria on which such opinions are based, aside from a coach's own intuition and practical experience. This study aimed to create a communal language and aligned criteria for the specific purpose of evaluating players’ performances. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with nine experienced coaches (13.6 ± 10.8 years) from a professional UK soccer academy to identify coaches’ perceptions of key position-specific soccer actions, performed during differing moments of the game, for evaluating individual match performance. Thematic analysis of the interview data permitted the extraction of several themes, posited to encompass the position-specific soccer actions highlighted by the coaches. Themes for outfield positions included attacking skills; defending skills; movements to receive, create or exploit space; receiving and releasing skills; support play; end product; press, recover to the ball, man or space; and tactical understanding. Goalkeeper themes included tactical understanding, positioning relative to the ball, danger, teammates and opponents, play forward, support play, choice of action and range of distribution. This study highlights an applied approach of creating a shared mental model for appraising player performances, which can facilitate discussion and knowledge exchange between coaches and practitioners, with the intention of improving decision-making around TID, TD and (de)selection decisions.