SportXXV,
Science
Review,
vol. XXV,
Sport Science Review, vol.
No.
1-2, May
2016 no. 1-2, 2016, 85 - 96
DOI: 10.1515/ssr-2016-0005
Norwegian Junior Football Players – Player´S
Perception Of Stress According To Playing
Time
Stig Arve SÆTHER1 • Nils Petter ASPVIK1
T
his study’s purpose was to investigate how junior football players
representing a professional club experienced stressors according
to there given playing time. Participants (N43) represented 3 football clubs
(mean 17.4 yrs). The results showed that the players playing all matches reported a lower level of stress related to performance and future stress compared to the players playing few matches. Furthermore, evaluation and performance stress was reported higher among player given few matches compared to players playing most matches. Even so, the present study found that
Norwegian junior players have a low level of stress. Based on this fact, our
results suggest that coaches should focus on the players playing few matches,
since they reported a higher level of stress on three dimensions, potentially
impairing their development as football players.
Keywords: Talent development, Stress, Playing time, Training
Department of Sociology and Political Science, Norwegian University of Science and Technology
1
ISSN: (print) 2066-8732/(online) 2069-7244
© 2016 • National Institute for Sport Research • Bucharest, Romania
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Norwegian Junior Football Players – Player´S Perception Of Stress According To Playing Time
Introduction
Even if junior football player (aged 15-20 yrs) in a professional club are
close to a potential professional career, few of them actually end up as toplevel players. Being a part of a professional club environment is associated
with many advantages, i.e., high-level coaches, skilled teammates, and training
facilities (Ashworth & Heyndels, 2007). These advantages would often result
in increased motivation to continue training for a potential professional career
(Fraser-Thomas, Côte, & Deakin, 2008). Players representing professional clubs
has often been identified as talented at an early age and a common characteristic
of these players are there early birth month. This birth month effect affecting
the identification process has been labeled the relative age effect (Barnsley et al
1985), and has been strongly documented in both youth level (Sæther 2015) and
professional football (Helsen, Baker, Michiels, Schorer,Van Winckel, & Williams
2012). Even so, to be able to develop further these players are also dependent of
playing time at the highest level, and according to their skill level. Being part of
a junior football team in a professional club would of course indicate that these
players are part of a highly competitive environment, with potential stressors
both connected to their football carrier, but also their everyday life in general.
As a result, junior players will encounter a range of personal and interpersonal
challenges that might affect their development (Richardson, Gilbourne, &
Littlewood, 2004). High expecting coaches, and expectations of high level
performance is usual for this group of players, and the players are expected to
cope with this pressure. Even if players are expected to tackle this pressure, a
high level of pressure may be two-sided since this on the one hand could be a
learning process regarding mental toughness and coping strategies related to
pressure and stress, but it can also be damaging and impair the development
process, such as loosing confidence and chocking under pressure.
According to Reeves, Nicholls, and McKenna (2009), adolescent athletes in
team sports are under-represented within the stress and coping literature, and
research in this area is highly recommended. This article will therefore examine
how junior players playing time are related to four common stressors (e.g.,
Evaluation, Performance, Development, and Future) among high performing
youth players.
Playing time
Even if recruitment to a high-level club could be sees a advantage in a
player development perspective, this will also represent some challenges. The
higher the level at which a club performs, the higher the expectations from both
fans and coaches to succeed. This, in turn, can reduce the playing time of young,
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Sport Science Review, vol. XXV, No. 1-2, May 2016
inexperienced players. In addition, the players are challenged with the pressure
of performing and repeatedly reproducing their skills. A large number of talent
development models have focused on how a player’s development depend on
environment factors (Bloom, 1985; Cote & Fraser-Thomas, 2008; Gagne, 2000),
especially a qualified co- ach in the start of youth soccer, called the investment
years (Ashworth & Heyndels, 2007, Cote et al., 2008). An earlier study has shown
that U20 players are given little playing time at the highest senior level (Sæther &
Solberg 2015). Most junior players are naturally not playing at the highest level,
but if they are expected to reach top level they must eventually be given playing
time at this level. An essential question for talented players is therefor which
skills the players are dependent of developing to be able to be assessed as good
enough by the high-level coaches.
Skill assessment is a common among young players since this is something
their coaches are doing on a regular basis (Elferink-Gemser, Visscher, Richart,
& Lemmink, 2004). However, the players’ ability to self-assess their own skills,
in addition to engage in critical reflection on their training, could be regarded as
important parts of the development process (Andersen, Hansen, & Hærem, 2015;
Kannekens, Elferink-Gemser, Post, & Visscher, 2009) in terms of addressing
their potential lack of skills. But, perhaps as a consequence of the fact that the
players are used to being assessed, an earlier study found a connection between
youth level players self-assessed skills and their level of playing time during a
season (Sæther, Aspvik & Høigaard 2016). Since playing time probably is the
most related factor indicating the coaches assessment of the players skills, this
fact got the authors to conclude that playing time often would give a appropriate
picture of the players assessment of their own skills.
Stress
A common definition of stress is the imbalance between the situation and a
player’s resources (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Stress is experienced at different
intensities and durations during adolescence and has different effects on each
individual (Grant et al., 2003), and it seems to increase during the players’
adolescence. The transition from high-level junior football to professional
football, could potentially be describes as the ultimate example of such a stressor
(Finn & McKenna, 2010), since the fear of failure regarding performance and
development (Sager, Busch, & Jowett, 2010) is essential and highly probably.
The environmental aspect is also essential in the understanding of stress, and is
a reason as to why the term “stress” has been widely discussed. Stress should
be seen to represent an overall process incorporating stressors, appraisals,
strains, and coping responses, according to Fletcher, Hanton, and Mellalieu
(2006). While Fletcher et al. (2006), claimed that a stressor is the environmental
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Norwegian Junior Football Players – Player´S Perception Of Stress According To Playing Time
demand or stimulus encountered by an individual, while strain is defined as an
individual’s negative response to stressors (e.g., burnout, dropout).
Independent of definition, the players must learn to cope with stressors if
they are to pursue a career in professional sports (Holt & Dunn, 2004), as failure
to cope can lead to decreased performance (Lazarus, 2000). The stress-recovery
balance is also related to injuries and illnesses in youth elite football players
(Brink et al., 2010). It is reasonable to believe that the players could experience
the perception of stress differently based on the skill level of the player (Reeves
et al., 2009). One could expect the players with are given the most playing time
to be least stressful regarding performance, since they are trusted to start most
games. The “benched” are on contrary, the players who are experiencing a lack
of mastery have a high degree of stress because they may not be selected for
the playing squad or they may be afraid of losing their place in the team. This
could potentially contribute to reduced well-being (Ivarsson et al., 2015) hope
(Gustafsson, Skoog, Podlog, Lundqvist, & Wagnsson, 2013), and player burnout
(Gustafsson & Skoog, 2012; Raedeke & Smith, 2004).
Method
Participants
Forty-three male Norwegian junior football players (mean age = 17.4 yrs,
SD 1.0 yrs) representing three professional football clubs, two top-level club
(64,5%) and one league two club (35,5%), respectively, were included in the
present study.
Procedure
The data were collected after a training session in the respective clubs in the
start of their season. Before answering the questionnaire, all of the participants
were informed about the purpose of the study, that their participation was
voluntary, that the survey was anonymous, and that all information would be
treated confidentially. All players were given an information letter for their
parents. The study (ethics clearance) was in accordance and approved by the
Norwegian Social Science Data Services.
Instruments
Stress. Based on the Adolescent Stress Questionnaire (Byrne, Davenport,
& Mazanov, 2007; Moksnes, Byrne, Mazanov, & Espnes, 2010), we developed a
16-item soccer players’ stressor questionnaire for the purposes of this study. The
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Sport Science Review, vol. XXV, No. 1-2, May 2016
introduction to these questions was: “Here are some statements about things or
situations that you may experience as stressful. Please tell us how stressful each
of these things or situations have been for you over the past year.” The items
were rated on a 5-point scale: 1 (Not stressful or irrelevant); 2 (A little stressful ), 3
(Moderately stressful ), 4 (Quite stressful ), and 5 (Very stressful ).
The 16 items were subjected to a principal component analysis (PCA) using
SPSS version 21.0. Prior to performing the PCA, the suitability of the data for
factor analysis was assessed. An inspection of the correlation matrix revealed
the presence of many coefficients of .3 and above. The Keiser-Meyer-Olkin
value was .75, exceeding the recommended value of .6, and the Bartlett’s test of
Sphericity reached statistical significance ( p<.05), supporting the factorability of
the correlation matrix (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2001).
The different factor combinations were labelled as “Evaluation stress,”
indicating stress concerning evaluations of performance by your coach or
teammates (i.e., being evaluated by your coach), “Performance stress,” concerning
stress regarding performance in training and matches (i.e., training performance),
”Development stress,” indicating stress concerning expectations for development
both from oneself and the coach (i.e., high expectations of coaches), and “Future
stress,” concerning stress regarding school attendance and lack of time for other
activities (i.e., keeping up in school). The response to each item was based on a
5-point scale ranging from 1 (Not stressful or irrelevant to me) to 5 (Very stressful ). The
Cronbach’s alpha for each subscale was .59 for Evaluation stress, .79 for Performance
stress, .50 for Development stress, and .49 for Future stress. For further analysis, the
three items in each subscale were collapsed into indexes. The tree clubs was also
separated to see if there were any differences on the four stress dimensions, the
results concluded no significant differences between these three clubs.
Analysis
All analyses were conducted in SPSS version 21.0. Means and standard
deviations were calculated for player characteristics, and the four stress
components. Multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVAs) were used to
identify the players’ playing time differences for player characteristics and player
stress. Furthermore, a Bonferoni’s post hoc procedure was applied to assess the
mean values between the playing time of the players. The significance level
(alpha) was set to .05.
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Norwegian Junior Football Players – Player´S Perception Of Stress According To Playing Time
Variables
Scale
%
All
matches
Mean
(SD)
Most
matches
Mean (SD)
Few matches
Mean (SD)
All
Mean (SD)
24
65
11
100
Player Characteristics
Age
15-21
17,3
17,5
17,4
17,4
Age startet playing
football
5-10
5,1
5,7
6,6n
5,7
Self-organised training
(day/week)
1-5 a
3,5
3,2
2,7
3,2
Evaluation stress
1-5 b
1,8
1,6
2,4**
1,7
Performance stress
1-5
1,9
2,1
3,2*´**
2,2
Development stress
1-5
2,2
2,0
2,4
2,1
Future stress
1-5
2,0
2,3
2,8n
2,3
Stress
*P < 0.05 – reference «all matches»
**P < 0.05 – reference «most matches»
a 1 = Never, 5 = 6-7 days a week
b 1 = Not stressful or irrelevant to me, 5 = Very stressful
Results
Our results showed no differences between the players given playing time
and age, and amount of self-organised training. The players who played few
matches started playing football somewhat later than the players who played all
matches, close to significant (< 0.071).
Table 1: Anova analysis, playing time (N43)
The players reported, on average, below mean on all of the four stress
components. Stress regarding evaluation was associated with playing time, as the
players who played few matches reported significantly more stress, compared
to the players who played most matches. Performance stress was reported higher
among the players playing few matches, compared to both the players playing
most and all matches. Development stress showed no significant differences in
terms of playing time. However, future stress was reported, close to significant
(< 0.075), higher among the players who played few matches, compared to the
players playing all matches.
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Sport Science Review, vol. XXV, No. 1-2, May 2016
Discussion
Playing time is an important part of young players development process,
and is vital to be able to develop the skills necessary to become a professional
football player. Players who are given less playing time reported a higher level of
stress compared to both the players playing most matches and all matches. The
players playing few matches reported a higher level of stress compared to the
players playing all matches related to performance and future stress, while they also
reported higher level of stress compared to the players playing most matches
on evaluation and performance stress. Despite being part of a highly competitive
context with many challenges (Finn & McKenna, 2010; Gustafsson & Skoog,
2012), overall, the junior players report low levels of stress regarding the four
components measured in this study. An obvious reason for these results are
the players’ expectations of high level of stress in the last phase from junior to
professional football. According to Grant et al. (2003), stressors are experienced
at different intensities and durations during adolescence. An earlier study of
football academy players (mean age 14,0) found only significant differences in
performance stress comparing to these players self assessed skills (Sæther, Aspvik
& Høigaard 2016).
Even if this study showed similar average means for all stress dimensions,
the players playing few matches in the present study reported higher level of
stress compared to all dimensions except the development stress. This could
indicate that since the likelihood for becoming a professional player would
mean a tougher competition, the level of stress would increase and especially
among the players given little playing time. Even so, finding that the players
who are playing few matches reported a higher level of stress compared to both
the players playing most and all matches, should be emphasized among the
coaches of these age groups. Depending on the coaches understanding on when
it is to late to become an professional football player, these players should be
given the opportunity to develop within their team, to maximize their potential.
Furthermore, the players’ ability to develop coping strategies (Reeves et al.,
2009) could also be important, especially because the research indicates the
difficulty of identifying potentially top-level players at an early age (Deprez,
Fransen, Lenoir, Philippaerts, & Vaeyens, 2015; Sæther, 2015).
Limitations of the study and future research
The authors acknowledge that the present study has some limitations.
This is a study of 43 Norwegian youth academy players with ages ranging from
15 to 20. One should be aware of this before generalising the present study’s
results. While the KMO supported factorability of the correlation matrix, the
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Norwegian Junior Football Players – Player´S Perception Of Stress According To Playing Time
Cronbach’s alpha values were low in three of the four dimensions (“evaluation”,
“development” and “future”), ranging from .49 - .59. Based on internal validity
of the questions, we chose to create the three dimensions. The authors also
acknowledge that while this is a cross-sectional study, we suggest more studies
with a longitudinal assessment.
Conclusion
This study found that the players given the least playing time reported more
stress related to all the three stress dimensions; evaluation, performance and future.
Even though being a part of a professional club environment is associated with
many advantages (Ashworth & Heyndels, 2007), the same environment also
have high expectations from the players (Richardson, Gilbourne, & Littlewood,
2004). Based on our results the players playing few matches are experiencing
these challenges. Even so, overall, the junior players reported a low level of stress
on all four components. Based on this fact, our results suggest that coaches
should focus on the players playing few matches, since they reported a higher
level of stress on three dimensions.
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Stig Arve SÆTHER is an Assistant Professor in sport science at the department of
sociology and political science, at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology,
NTNU. His main research interests is: youth sports, and talent development in football.
Corresponding author:
Stig Arve Sæther
Department of Sociology and Political Science,
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Dragvoll, 7491 Trondheim, Norway
E-mail: [email protected]
Nils Petter ASPVIK is a PhD student in sport science at the department of sociology
and political science, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NTNU.
With physical activity being the main research topic. Aspviks` research interests include;
children- and youth sport and the coach-athlete relationship.
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