BIHUB PATH

1 October, 2019

ARE FOOTBALL PLAYERS GETTING OLDER?

Sports Performance
318K

Changes in sport are closely linked to changes in society. Life expectancy is increasing and the retirement age has also progressively increased in Spain. This same trend can be seen, for example, in tennis. The average age of the top 100 male players has increased in the last decade in 0.34 years per season, going from an average age of 26.2 in the last decade to a historical high of 27.9 years.1

A recent research study2 confirms that this trend also takes place in football, players are becoming increasingly older. After analysing the ages of all the players who took part in the Champions League between the seasons 1992-1993 and 2017-2018, the researchers discovered a number of interesting findings:

  • The average age of football players has increased by 1.6 years, from 24.9 in the first season analysed, to 26.5 in the last season analysed (Figure 1).
  • This increase can be seen across all specific positions. Goalkeepers and centre-backs are the positions with the oldest players (Figure 2).
  • An inverted U curve characterises the relationship between the market value of players and their age, with the maximum value found in the range of 26 to 30 years old. Players over 30 had a lower value, even lower than players in the 16 to 20-year-old age range.
  • There are no age differences between the teams that have won championships and those that were finalists, semi-finalists or eliminated in the first rounds of competition. It appears that a combination of youth and maturity may be the best formula for success (Figure 3).
Figure 1. Average age of football players competing in the Champions League (1992-93 to 2017-18)
Figure 2. Average age of football players for each specific position
Figure 3. Evolution of the age of football players and the team performance

The explanation as to why football players are getting older is likely related to a combination of multiple factors. Technology, diet, training, injury prevention, money invested and the expertise of nowadays coaching staffs could all be contributing factors. Teams now train better; players take more care of themselves and science has helped to better understand what is needed to make fewer mistakes. It is also possible that we are expanding the limits of performance.

The practical application of these findings suggest that:

1.We should not just focus on signing very young players. The market value of players decreases drastically after the age of 30, however it appears that at this age athletes can still offer quality performance for a number of seasons. Furthermore, an experienced player may possibly require less time to adapt to a new club and play their best from the moment they join the club.

2. The trend of ageing players appears likely to continue in upcoming years. Players are getting older, especially goalkeepers and centre-backs.

3. The investment made by clubs in research, technology and well-qualified coaching staff may all have contributed to maintaining the value of the players.

 

Sign up for Certificate in Training for Team Sports

 

 

Carlos Lago Peñas

 

References:

1 Kovalchik, S. A. (2014). The older they rise the younger they fall: age and performance trends in men’s professional tennis from 1991 to 2012. J. Quant. Anal. Sports 10, 99–107.

2 Kalén A, Rey E, de Rellán-Guerra AS and Lago-Peñas C (2019) Are Soccer Players Older Now Than Before? Aging Trends and Market Value in the Last Three Decades of the UEFA Champions League. Front. Psychol. 10:76

RELATED NOTES

THE IMPORTANCE OF TEAM LEADERS GIVING CONFIDENCE TO THE TEAM

The success of team leaders has a lot to do with their ability to inspire and empower the team.

MATT TABERNER’S “CONTROL-CHAOS CONTINUUM” REHABILITATION AFTER INJURY MODEL

As a team’s success is greatly determined by player availability, injuries may exert a great influence upon the team’s results throughout a season, subsequently affecting the team’s final league position and the club’s financial income.

HOW CAN PLAYING WITHOUT AN AUDIENCE AFFECT THE MATCH RESULT?

The return of the competition almost three months later includes a change in the regulation that allows a maximum of 5 substitutions per game and a bigger number of players can be called.

CAN GENETICS HELP PREDICT SPORTS TALENT?

Physiological, anthropometric and psychological traits are partially inheritable; that’s why there’s a growing interest to find new techniques which can help predict sports talent through the use of genetics.

DIFFERENCES IN THE MAXIMUM DEMAND SCENARIOS IN FOOTBALL BETWEEN THE FIRST AND THE SECOND HALF

The goal for training is to help players be best prepared for competing.

PERFORMANCE EVALUATION IN TEAM SPORTS. PACO SEIRUL·LO’S PROPOSAL

Science has changed training in team sports by modifying many routines and preparations. The quantification of everything which takes place in a training session is one of the goals for the staff.

CONSEQUENCES OF THE LOCKDOWN FOR PROFESSIONAL ATHLETES

There is no precedent whatsoever for the situation lived in professional sports all over the world as a consequence of the coronavirus pandemic. The majority of athletes have had to face uncertainty.

ANDREAS IVARSSON: “INCLUDING PSYCHOLOGICAL TECHNIQUES IN THE PREVENTION PROGRAMS WOULD REDUCE THE RISK OF INJURIES”

One of the great dangers an athlete can face, if not the greatest, is the risk of getting injured. That’s why its prevention and treatment constitute an essential part of the medical and performance department of the clubs.

CURRENT CHALLENGES IN SPORTS FACING COVID-19: TRAINING, STADIUMS AND BUDGET

The long inactivity due to the forced quarantine has taken a long time to be accepted by all of the economic sectors.

GAMIFICATION OF BARÇA’S FEMALE TEAM TRAINING SESSIONS DURING CONFINEMENT

Physical trainer Lluis Cortés and his physical trainers, Berta Carles and Jacob González have organised training sessions as if they were a competition for as long as this break lasts.

COVID-19: HOW FC BARCELONA TRAINS DURING THE ISOLATION PERIOD

The quarantine necessary to flatten the pandemic curve has completely changed the training and competition dynamics of athletes and clubs, which suddenly have had to modify their usual training.

THE INFLUENCE OF COACHES ON PLAYERS’ LEARNING. HOW TO GIVE FEEDBACK DURING A TRAINING SESSION

The profession of a coach is not easy at all. Besides an outstanding knowledge of the gameplay, it is necessary to fully master pedagogical skills to help players learn better and faster.

HOW DOES PLAYING AN EXTRA TIME INFLUENCE A FOOTBALL PLAYERS’ PERFORMANCE?

Two studies have analyzed how playing extra time influences players’ physical and technical-tactical performance.

THE INFLUENCE OF A PLAYER BEING SENT OFF ON THE TEAM’S PERFORMANCE

Sending off a player seems to have a psychological effect within the team, which leads them to exert a greater effort during what’s left of the match.

HAPPINESS VERSUS WELLNESS IN ELITE SPORT

In team sports, coaches make a lot of decisions and some of them have an immediate impact on the efficiency of the game.

THE COADJUVANT TRAINING METHODOLOGY USED BY FC BARCELONA

Almost 25 years ago Paco Seirul·lo advocated the need for adaptation of high training loads with a parallel preparation to improve physical and technical abilities for elite athlete.

WINTER BREAK AND INJURIES IN ELITE FOOTBALL

The number of official matches that every season professional footballers play, has increased.

TRAINING LOAD, PERFORMANCE AND INJURY RISK IN RUGBY PLAYERS

A rugby player’s ability to perform high-intensity intermittent exercises is associated with a higher training load (TL) which takes place during matches.

WHAT WILL FOOTBALL LOOK LIKE IN 2030? THE EVOLUTION OF THE GAME SINCE 1966

We are interested to know what will football look like in the future. We must anticipate this during training to prepare the players as well as possible.

WHAT DO YOU NEED TO LEARN TO WORK IN FOOTBALL ANALYTICS?

If you enjoy both the game itself and statistics, nothing could be better than combining the two in a career.

THE FUTURE OF TRACKING AT CAMP NOU

The purpose is straightforward: To know all that’s happening with the players on a football pitch.

WHEN INTERPRETING TRAINING DATA, THINK TWICE BEFORE DOING NOTHING!

“Load Management” has become a popular phrase in high-performance sport.

THE SCIENCE OF SPACE CREATION

Javier Fernandez and other members of his team are leading a rigorous scientific attempt to understand football.

THE INFLUENCE OF AGE ON FOOTBALLERS’ PERFORMANCE

Elite athletes are getting older. We know that players can give their best performance levels for longer now than they could a few decades ago.

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE H:Q RATIO AND HAMSTRING INJURIES

Injuries are one of the main concerns in the world of sports as they are the primary reason which interrupts an athlete’s training program.

THE USE OF VR/AR/MR TO IMPROVE PERFORMANCE IN SPORTS

Virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality are establishing themselves in a society which is becoming ever more accustomed to the use of new technologies for entertainment, consumption or information.

PRE-SEASON DESIGN: THE INFLUENCE OF INITIAL RESULTS ON A TEAM’S FINAL RANKING

One of the first decisions a club’s coaching staff must take is the design of pre-season training.

PRE-SEASON. GETTING READY TO SHAPE THE PHYSICAL FITNESS OF PLAYERS

The objective of the pre-season is to seek the best individual and collective physical fitness of the team before beginning the competition.

THE ADVANTAGE OF PLAYING AT HOME

The advantage of playing at home in football is a widely studied and recognised phenomenon.

SMALL-SIDED GAMES IN FOOTBALL. ARE ADAPTATIONS THE SAME FOR PROFESSIONAL PLAYERS AND AMATEURS?

Small-sided games (SSG) are very common training tasks for any team.

APPLYING THE PRINCIPLES OF JOHAN CRUYFF TO DATA SCIENCE

With such an ambitious goal, the Barça Innovation Hub has presented its research at this year’s world-renowned MIT Sloan Sports Analytics international conference.

EVALUATION OF THE INTERNAL LOAD IN FOOTBALL: FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE

The development of elite sports has meant that players are constantly exposed to higher training loads, busier competition schedules and shorter rest periods.

ISOMETRIC STRENGTH OF THE POSTERIOR CHAIN: ITS IMPORTANCE IN FOOTBALL AND HOW TO MEASURE IT

In football, hamstring injuries have been shown to account for up to 37% of muscle injuries.

NORDIC HAM CURLS DO NOT IMPROVE SPRINTING PERFORMANCE

The hamstring muscle is very important in sports such as football. Not only because this muscle is key to sprinting, but also because hamstring muscle injuries are the most frequent kind of injuries.

MAXIMUM DEMAND SCENARIOS IN POSITIONAL PLAY: ARE THEY EQUALLY REPLICATED ACROSS ALL POSITIONS?

Players’ conditional response during competition, for example, distance covered at a run, has traditionally been described using the average value covered during a half or full game.

THE INFLUENCE OF THE PERCEIVED EXERTION RATING ON FOOTBALL TRAINING AND COMPETITION.

Monitoring training load is one of the fundamental tools for optimising the performance of both elite athletes in general and football players in particular.

ENTROPY, A NEW MEASUREMENT IN STRENGTH TRAINING

The ability to sprint is essential in the majority of team sports, including rugby, soccer, and basketball. But this ability is not developed in stable and controlled conditions: players are constantly subjected to variable demands, whether receiving, carrying, passing, hitting, or throwing the ball.

ARE SMALL-SIDED GAMES THE SOLUTION TO ALL OUR PROBLEMS?

One of today’s most attention-grabbing topics among sports researchers, coaches and managers have to do with the study of maximal demand scenarios, also known as “worst case scenarios”.

PLAYER ORIENTATION, A KEY ASPECT OF PREDICTIVE MODELS IN FOOTBALL

In the OptaPro Forum this week, Carlos Rodríguez will be presenting a study currently being carried out by the club on the body orientation of players in different game situations. We sat down for a chat with him so that he could give us a brief explanation of the project.

WHICH VARIABLES DO WE TRAINERS LOOK AT TO HELP US MAKE DECISIONS?

Of all the variables provided by the systems that monitor and record our players’ activity, what is the most relevant information? This is a question that all coaches will probably face when they begin managing the large volumes of data generated in every training session.

FC BARCELONA: HOW OUR NEW RESEARCH HELPED UNLOCK THE ‘BARÇA WAY’

For the first time, our new research may provide some insight into the training methodology and, potentially, the secrets of the club’s success. These “secrets” could be closely associated with the theories put forward by coach Paco Seirul·lo and how they link with cutting edge sports science.

DO FOOTBALL PLAYER’S MENTAL ABILITIES INFLUENCE THE RISK OF INJURY?

Mental abilities, although not yet fully appreciated, are already considered a relevant part of performance. But their importance could go beyond that: Do they also influence the injury risk, including recurrence, once the player returns to play?

NEW DATA ON PHYSICAL DEMANDS IN BASKETBALL PLAYERS

A basketball player performs approximately one thousand actions on average during a game, and at least one out of every ten requires high intensity. The detailed analysis of these physical demands allows for optimized training, improved performance and decreased injury risk.

INJURY TYPE IN HANDBALL MAY VARY BY POSITION, CATEGORY AND MATURATION OF PLAYERS

Although several studies have tried to evaluate the characteristics of the risk of injury in handball players, they have been unable to reach sufficiently reliable conclusions. A new study of all the FC Barcelona handball categories has attempted to shed more light on the subject.

IS IT POSSIBLE TO DEVELOP AN “UNBREAKABLE” ATHLETE?

HOW PHYSICAL DEMANDS ON FOOTBALL PLAYERS VARY BY THEIR POSITION

Although there are several studies on this topic, many of them have analyzed these demands by looking at just a few variables or using very broad timeframes. A new study completed by physical trainers from F.C. Barcelona has analyzed several of these details more closely.

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE CONNECTIVE TISSUE IN MUSCLE INJURIES

An article published in The Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine —in which members of the club’s medical services participated— now suggests to consider the detailed structure of the area affected, and treating the extracellular matrix as an essential player in the prognosis of the injury.

HAMSTRING AND OTHER MUSCLE INJURIES IN CHILDREN AND YOUNG ATHLETES

This is a groundbreaking study that addresses hamstring injuries in children and youth. The results indicate that the risk is lower than it is in adults, though no less significant, and that it increases progressively with age.

WHAT IS LOAD MANAGEMENT REALLY ABOUT?

In this article, Tim Gabbett and his team provide a user-friendly guide for practitioners when describing the general purpose of load management to coaches.

TWO WEEKS ARE ENOUGH TO INCREASE MUSCLE VOLUME AND STRENGTH

For the first time, it has been demonstrated that it does not take months of training to significantly improve both muscle volume and strength; instead, two weeks of an appropriate exercise are enough.

RECOVERY NUTRITION FOR FOOTBALL: BUILDING A TEAM

ECCENTRIC EXERCISES: STUDYING “VACCINES” FOR MUSCLES

Training using eccentric exercises is important to prevent possible damage. However, intensive training can also cause muscle damage, so it is critical to be vigilant in order to keep injury risk to an absolute minimum.

AN OBJECTIVE CLASSIFICATION OF MUSCLE INJURIES

An objective and appropriate classification would improve the accuracy of prognosis, allow treatment to be adjusted and reduce the risk of re-injury.

STUDY OF HIGH INTENSITY ACCELERATIONS AND DECELERATIONS IN SOCCER

A new dimension of analysis suggests that maximum accelerations occur with a frequency 8x greater than sprint actions.

THE LEVEL OF RESISTANCE AS A MODERATOR OF THE TRAINING LOAD

Cardiovascular endurance manifests as a moderator of the load result to which the athlete is exposed.

PRE-SEASON TRAINING LOAD AND INJURY RISK

The pre-season or preparatory phase of the season is a time when major “errors” in training load management are often committed.

Are the players well positioned in relation to the ball?

Through the use of computer vision we can identify some shortcomings in the body orientation of players in different game situations.

Diagnostic Imaging in Sports Medicine: Present and Future

Muscle injuries account for more than 30% of all injuries in sports like soccer. Their significance is therefore enormous in terms of training sessions and lost game time.

DO YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE?

  • SUBSCRIBE
  • CONTACT
  • APPLY

KEEP UP TO DATE WITH OUR NEWS

Do you have any questions about Barça Universitas?

  • Startup
  • Research Center
  • Corporate

PLEASE COMPLETE THE FIELDS:

PLEASE COMPLETE THE FIELDS:

PLEASE COMPLETE THE FIELDS:

The Form has been sent successfully.

PLEASE COMPLETE THE FIELDS:

PLEASE COMPLETE THE FIELDS:

PLEASE COMPLETE THE FIELDS:

The Form has been sent successfully.

PLEASE COMPLETE THE FIELDS:

PLEASE COMPLETE THE FIELDS:

PLEASE COMPLETE THE FIELDS:

The Form has been sent successfully.