Early and late maturity in youth football and the

implications for talent development. Is bio-banding the new

direction in talent development in youth football?
1. Introduction

The following reading is investigating the newly developed by scholars and practitioners’
bio-banding practice and competition for youth football players. The paper is examining the
existing literature on the topic and is identifying the strengths and limitations of such
practices in the context of talent development (TD) in youth football. Current TD theories
and youth football practices are analysed and investigated. Applied practical coaching
examples and qualitative research results are explored and coherent conclusion and
recommendations for future development advised.

2. History of talent identification (TI) and talent development (TD) models, the relative
age effect (RAE)

Professional sport is a significant social aspect of the lives of many people. As scholars
suggest, football is the most popular sport worldwide in terms of spectatorship, popularity
and participation rates. In elite academy football, youth talent development (TD) models
aim at the identification and development of talented players as young as 8 years of age. It
is suggested that those young players selected to join an academy setting have much better
chances to make it to the professional adult game (Bennet, Vaeyerns & Fransen, 2019), and
consequently, the chances of those who are not selected are close to none (Figueiredo et
al., 2019). Therefore, the talent selection decision has a serious impact on the lives of all of
the involved stakeholders – athletes, parents, relatives, coaches, club owners etc. The topic
of talent identification (TI) and talent development (TD) has been of interest of academics
for some time now. The existing literature, however, suggests the selection processes focus
mainly on physical, physiological and current performance variables when assessing for
future potential or development excellence (Abbott and Collins, 2002; Meylan et al., 2010).

When referring to physical attributes in youth football, the speed of maturation of an

athlete play an important role. Since the players are organised in chronological age groups,
it is not uncommon for players of the same age to differ dramatically in their physical and
physiological development. Relative age effect (RAE) is a term referring to the age difference
between individuals competing in the same age group. Based on the cut of date in most
countries, the age difference between peers can be up to 12 months (Helsen, Van Winckel &
Williams, 2005). Moreover, individuals mature biologically at a different speed. Maturation
is defined as the status, the timing and the speed at which one progress from adolescence
to adulthood (Cumming et al., 2017).

Based on all of the above factors, it seems that players that mature early and those that
mature late may experience significant difficulties in their development compared to their
normally maturing peers. In English academy soccer, late maturers are 20 times more likely
to be deselected. This is concerning statistics based on the fact neither the date of birth or
the maturity timing are in the athlete’s control (Johnson, 2015). To cater to those individuals
better and to improve their experience and enjoyment of football, scholars recently
suggested bio-banding as a solution to the RAE impact on TD. Defined by Cumming and
colleagues, bio-banding is the process of grouping athletes according to their growth and
maturation levels, instead of their chronological age (Cumming et al. 2017).
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3. Bio-banding explained

Malina and colleagues (2004; 2019) explains bio-banding as the grouping of youth players
11-15 years old based not on their chronological age (date of birth), but their maturation
rates. In puberty, changes are appearing in the athletes’ body size, stature, composition,
motor and functional capacities – strength, power, speed. When grouping players according
to their chronological age, those individuals who are more advanced in their biological
development have an advantage over their peers who mature on-time or are delayed
(Cumming et al., 2018). Current TI and TD models are well documented to mainly focus and
take into account physical and physiological attributes when assessing youth for talent or
future potential (Abbott and Collins, 2004; Mills, Butt & Harwood, 2012). In terms of TI and
TD, if one is physically superior to his peers, due to his early biological development taking
place, this athlete usually has better chance to be identified as talented, hence selected for
TD programs. This is worrying fact as those who are not chosen in such programs since they
are not at fault and have no control whatsoever to influence the selection criteria.

Addressing the above-mentioned issue bio-banding practices and competitions come to

cater to those individuals and give them equal opportunity to express themselves in an
environment they feel comfortable in. Since this is still a novice practice, the literature
around it is limited to a few competitions’ analyses and a seven-week pre-season bio-
banding practice experiment. However, all of these studies are conducted in European top
divisions football academies, which gives the results reliability presuming the coaching staff
conducting the practice are highly qualified in their area of expertise. Academics and
practitioners hypothesised perceived advantages of such practices for the early and late
developers. However, they do not consider bio-banding as a replacement of the
chronological age group practices but as an additional experience addressing some of the
issues these particular groups of athletes experience when competing with their cohorts
(Cumming et al., 2017).

4. Assessment of youth’s maturation:

Three processes take place in children from their childhood to their adulthood – growth,
maturation and development. Increase of body size and composition and changes in body
proportions are referred to as growth. Maturation is defined as the progress one undergoes
towards biologically mature stature, that includes a variety of functional systems in the
human body – skeletal, reproductive, neuromuscular. Development refers to the attainment
of social, cognitive and emotional behaviours appropriate for the environment one is
present in (Malina et al., 2019).

One could see that defining an athletes’ maturation level is somehow complex process.
Academics propose a few ways of identifying maturity status. In as early as the beginning of
the 20-th century, children’s wrist X-rays were used to determine one’s anatomic age.
Originally designed in the context of school participation and child labour, the protocol was
also used in athletics within boys and girls (Rotch, 1908 cited in Malina et al., 2019).
Although still applicable nowadays, the invasive X-ray method of identifying youth biological
age raises some ethical concerns amongst scholars and practitioners (Johnson, Farooq and
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Whiteley, 2017). Reeves and colleagues (2018) however, used a method including the
athlete’s and parent’s height, skeletal maturity and body mass to define maturity level and
group athletes into similar biological age bands. That protocol was advised by Khamis and
Roche (1994) and was used in previous studies with acceptable participant agreement. The
maturity indicator presently used in bio-banding grouping consists of the fraction of
predicted adult height reached at the time of observation. According to Malina and
colleagues (2019), this is the most recent application and extension of the previously used
concept of “maturity matching” (Beunen and Malina, 2008).

5. Application in practice

As mentioned earlier, there are limited studies on practical applications of bio-banding. One
of the pioneering research in the area of bio-banding was conducted by Malina and
colleagues (2004) in top division football academy setting in Portugal. With a sample group
of 69 players (13-15 years of age), the paper identifies an association between maturity
status and playing positions on the pitch. Defenders and forwards were found to be the
most advanced in their biological age, and body size and stage of maturity were recognised
as contributors to better performance on speed, agility and power tests (Malina et al.,
2004). That also come in line with previous research on players positions, where height and
strength were identified as main attributes defenders must possess to be selected in TD
programs (Razali et al., 2017; Ryan et al., 2018).

In similar research, Cumming and colleagues (2017) explored the experiences of 66

professional football academy players in England aged 11 to 14. The qualitative approach
they adopted gives an idea of what the participants feel when competing against players of
the same biological age. Four themes emerged from their study – psychological
development, technical/tactical development, physical development and overall experience
of the bio-banded strategy. Late maturing players reported less physicality and found it
easier to express themselves when with the ball, played with more freedom, felt more
responsible and acquire leadership skills. Early maturing participants recognised they need
to use their technical ability more than their physicality and found it physically challenging.
They also reported they had less time on the ball to react or make a decision, but also felt an
increase in their confidence when playing with the older cohort.

Both early and late maturing players agreed that bio-banding presented more equitable
playing environment and felt it beneficial for their development. Both groups considered
bio-banding as beneficial for their TD. Participants also reported that they needed to adapt
their game to suit the new environment and had opportunities to challenge their decision
making and to demonstrate adapting their technical and tactical skills.

The above-mentioned bio-banding studies focused on players’ attributes associated with

playing positions and players’ experience of competitive games. Reeves and colleagues
(2018) explored the topic even further by investigating the players’, parents’ and coaches’
experience of seven weeks pre-season training period. Players were from English
professional football academies, hence they were already selected for TD. The only
longitudinal study on this topic to this moment identified 6 areas associated with bio-
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banding training sessions: interpretation of bio-banding, perceived advantages and
disadvantages, changes of coaching planning, education of stakeholders and logistical
issues. 66 players, 8 staff and 80 parents/guardians took place in the study.
The research yielded a few areas of interest in terms of TD. Poor knowledge of the bio-
banding process can lead to misinterpretations, hence educating the parents and staff about
the bio-banding process and rationale behind it seems crucial if this innovative TD method is
to last. Players, however, appear to understand the idea and reasons behind this kind of
practice.

The parents reported high support and trust for the coaching staff to do what they consider
best for their child’s development, even if that means the athlete has to go down an age
group. Coaches also acknowledged the new format is more competitive and equal for the
players and observed greater enjoyment of the game, especially with the late-maturing
players. All of the above studies are innovative and to an extent, pioneers in the area of bio-
banding, therefore all the results should be interpreted with caution. However, these papers
give an idea of an efficient way of developing early and late maturing football players.

6. Strengths of bio-banding

As mentioned in the previous section, one proposed advantage of bio-banding in youth

football was identified as the fact players can build confidence and feel comfortable
expressing themselves when playing with similar biological age peers, whereas when playing
against physically superior athletes they tend to get more anxious and their decision making
may suffer as a result. Psycho-social attributes such as confidence, leadership and
responsibility, also in line with previous research on mental toughness in football academies
(Cook et al, 2014), were few of the areas one could consider as strength in the bio-banding
TD model.

Older chronological age players demonstrated better attitude, competence and efficacy
when playing with the younger peers, which leads one to assume the athletes develop their
self-awareness of capacity and skills. That finding is further supported by the work of Mills
et al. (2012). The psychological benefits reported in Reeves et al. (2018) are also worth
noting since bio-banding considers biological aspects but does not account for psychological
aspects of the athletes’ development per se, and usually the two does not manifest together
(Vayerns et al., 2008).

7. Limitations of bio-banding

A potential limitation of the bio-banding strategies is that they show limited evidence on
preventing injuries, increasing equity and enhance athlete development. However, that may
be arguable as there is no scientific evidence to support the opposite point of view either
(Cumming et al., 2017). As mentioned earlier, poor knowledge of the bio-banding practice
may lead parents to think their child has been moved down an age group, which may have
its future consequences in terms of confidence and motivation loss (Reeves et al., 2018).
Few of the players in Reeves’ study reported that they felt socially isolated at the beginning
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of the bio-banding practice because they were not familiar with most of the players they
had to play with. It is well documented by scholars that social factor plays an important role
in youth football players participation and change in social dynamics can harm athletes’
confidence and motivation (Bailey, Cope and Pearce, 2013).

8. Conclusion and Recommendations

TI and TD programs focusing on physical attributes often fail to produce based on these
characteristics alone. The reason behind it being the fact an athlete who is an early mature
may often rely on his physical strength and neglect the development of other, equally
important, technical and tactical skills. The lack of challenge when one is superior physically
is also something to consider during the developmental stage – childhood and adolescence.
The consequences of the above-mentioned actions may harm one’s development during
late adolescence and early adulthood when the maturity-associated differences in size
attenuate. To cater to such individuals an innovative bio-banding approach can support
early or late developers.

By removing the physical factor of the game of the late maturers, they can express
themselves better on the pitch, feel confident in their skills, take more responsibility and
overall have a sense of control over the game. These psychological attributes are important
for TD and reaching the top of the adult game. On another side, the early matured athletes
can also benefit from different challenges, increased speed of the game, improved decision
making, boost in confidence when playing with older cohort and enhanced physical and
technical/tactical development. According to existing literature, which is not a lot to this
moment, bio-banding seems like an effective way of easing the RAE issues in TI and TD.

Parental and coaches education needs to be addressed if bio-banding is to become an

effective TD procedure in future. The age in question is in athletes’ late childhood and early
adolescence and in that period players are very much depending on parental support.
Therefore, it is of major importance that practitioners and parents reinforce each other's
messages in the best interest of the athletes’ development. The pros and cons of bio-
banding processes must be informed to all of the stakeholders in TD. That is especially
relevant when a late-maturing player has to go down an age group.

Since bio-banding is a relatively new strategy for TD, more practical work needs to be done
to better understand to positives and the negatives of such an approach to early and late
maturing athletes. There is a clear relationship between bio-banding practice and the
development of psychological and sociological attributes amongst the players participating.
That relationship is an area that may be worth further exploring since not a lot of TI and TD
models focus on psychological skills when assessing for future potential and development.
To do that, and to be able to compare and contrast studies on the topic, there is also a need
for unifying the definitions of maturity and the bio-banding selection processes.

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