Youth-to-senior transition in women's and girls' football: Towards a better understanding of relative age effects and gender-specific considerations

Abstract

This study aimed to evaluate youth-to-senior transition and the relative age effect in Italian female football national teams. Birthdate data of 774 female players selected for Under 17 (N = 416), 19 (N = 265) and National Senior team (N = 93) were analysed. The youth-to-senior transition rate was determined by the number of youth players competing in the Senior National team (and vice versa), whilst birth quarter (Q) distributions with a chi-square goodness-of-fit test. Only 17.4% of youth players were able to be selected for the Senior National team, whereas 31.2% of the players reached the high-senior level without being selected for youth age groups. Data revealed a skewed birth date distribution in Under 17 and 19 teams (on average, Q1 = 35.6% vs Q4 = 18.5%) but not in the Senior National team. Youth players born in Q1 were two times more likely to be selected than in Q4. In Under 17, goalkeepers, defenders, and midfielders of Q1 players were overrepresented. However, Q4 players recorded higher conversion rates than Q1 (Q1 = 16.4% vs. Q4 = 25.0%). National youth experience may not be a prerequisite for being selected at the senior level. Moreover, this confers a higher probability of playing in the National Senior team than players not selected in youth rosters.

Fig 1. Youth-to-senior transition rate.

Overall visual inspection of the youth-to-senior transition rate. The Sankey diagram provides the number of players able to reach the National Senior team from Under 17, 19 (or both together). The figure also provides the number of players that were not selected for Senior National Team.

Fig 2. Birth quartile youth-to-senior transition rates.

Data are presented calculated considering all players that competed in Under 17 or 19 and successfully reached the National Senior team.