Summary
Research article - Report
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Extract
Testing of tactical performance in youth elite soccer.
Introduction
The inclusion of tactical skills as well as conditional and technical competencies in youth football training at an early stage are becoming a key topic in scientific discussions (Memmert and Konig, 2007; Memmert and Harvey, 2009; Memmert and Roth, 2007; Memmert and Perl, 2009a; 2009b). The talent program of the German Soccer Foundation (DFB) assigns a significant role to tactical creativity (divergent tactical thinking) and tactical game intelligence (convergent tactical thinking) at an early stage in youth football training (DFB, 2002). Creativity was intensively studied in domains as diverse as science, literature, music, art, religion and politics (for an overview, see Sternberg and Lubart, 1999), but less in the sport context. Models, concepts, and tests of creative thinking are now a topic of current discussions (Dietrich, 2007; Runco, 2007; Memmert, 2009; 2010c). In a general and more scientific context, Sternberg and Lubart (1999, p. 3) and others (e.g. Ward, 2007) define creativity as "the ability to produce work that is both novel (i.e. original, unexpected) and appropriate (i.e. useful). In the domain of team sports like soccer, basketball, field hockey, or handball, dissociating from the so-called best solutions (tactical game intelligence or convergent tactical thinking), tactical creativity (divergent tactical thinking) is understood to be the surprising, original and flexib...See the full content of this document
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