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    Successful Careers in Football – Findings of a Person-Oriented Study

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    A successful career in football is the result of the appropriate interaction between different aspects of an individual’s life, since the various areas and phases of one’s life depend on each other. An endogenous causal relationship exists throughout a person’s entire history (Mayer, 1990). In particular, their family, work and sports career must be tuned to each other. The transition from the initial stages of education (compulsory schooling) to vocational training, which coincides with the beginning of the selection for the national youth teams, is a particularly critical phase (Wylleman, Theeboom, & Lavallee, 2004). In order to do justice to the overall life situation of a young sports talent during this transition phase, we have adopted a holistic perspective and follow Bergman, Magnusson and El-Khouri (2003) in using a person-oriented and systemic approach. In doing so, our main focus lies on the person-environment system. This overall system is made up of various subsystems, consisting of several operating factors which interact with one another. The different levels to which these operating factors are expressed lead to observable patterns, which can be summarised in the form of types. Particularly promising types can therefore be identified and the developmental process can be described. Former players on the Swiss U16 to U21 national football teams, born between 1981 and 1987 (n=159), were interviewed concerning their careers, and the operating factors school/vocational training, family support and sports environment were examined. With the help of the LICUR method (Linking of Clusters after removal of Residue) (Bergman et al., 2003), developmental types were identified which were promising in terms of achieving top performance in adulthood. A range of developmental types and anti-types emerge for the transition from the under-15 phase to the over-16 phase. One particularly promising type is observed in the over-16 phase, for which the operating factors education, family support and participation in national U16 to U18 teams have slightly above-average scores, with scores that are well above average in the sports environment

    National youth team football players between the conflicting priorities of sports success and vocational training

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    In view of the risks involved in relying on a professional career in football as a way of making a future living, most players on Swiss National Youth Football Teams pursue some form of vocational training at the same time. This paper investigates the question under what conditions a successful football career is possible when faced with such a dual burden. In order to examine the development process as holistically as possible, a person-oriented approach was chosen. 159 former Swiss National Youth Team players were retrospectively interviewed about their careers, and the data were analysed using the LICUR method (Bergman, Magnusson, & El-Khouri, 2003). This involves identifying certain patterns in the relevant variables of sports career, vocational career and family support, and then comparing these with the performance at the age of peak performance. Through this, it was possible to identify promising patterns of development. It turns out that the critical transition, at the age of about 15–16 years, is characterised overall by stability. The most successful patterns display above-average family support accompanied by above-average professional talent promotion in the clubs. In this constellation, the football players who are later successful pursue vocational training courses leading to low levels of educational qualification

    Fussball-Juniorennationalspieler im Spannungsfeld zwischen sportlichem Erfolg und Berufsausbildung

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    Da eine leistungssportliche Fussball Karriere mit Blick auf eine existenzsichernde Zukunft ein risikoreiches Unterfangen ist, absolvieren die meisten Schweizer Fussball-Juniorennationalspieler auch eine Berufsausbildung. Daher stellt sich die Frage, ob und unter welchen Bedingungen eine erfolgreiche Fussballkarriere möglich ist, wenn parallel ein Berufsabschluss angestrebt wird. Nach Mayer (2009) vollzieht sich der menschliche Lebensverlauf in verschiedenen Lebensbereichen, die sich gegenseitig beeinflussen. Um dieser Interdependenz gerecht zu werden, wurde von einem personorientierten Ansatz ausgegangen, der Entwicklungsprozesse möglichst ganzheitlich zu erfassen vermag. 159 ehemalige Schweizer Juniorennationalspieler wurden zu ihrer Karriere retrospektiv befragt und die Daten mittels LICUR-Methode (Bergman, Magnusson, & El-Khouri, 2003) ausgewertet. Dabei wurden auf der Grundlage relevanter Variablen der sportlichen Laufbahn, der beruflichen Ausbildung und der familialen Unterstützung spezifische Muster identifiziert und diese anschließend mit einem Leistungskriterium im Höchstleistungsalter verglichen. Dadurch konnten erfolgsversprechende Entwicklungsmuster aufgedeckt werden. Es zeigt sich, dass der kritische Übergang von der Development zur Mastery Phase (Salmela, 1994) insgesamt durch Kontinuität geprägt ist. Die erfolgreichsten Muster charakterisieren sich durch eine überdurchschnittlich hohe Unterstützung durch die Familie bei gleichzeitig überdurchschnittlich professionellen Förderbedingungen im Club
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