The Relationship between Selective Attention and Agility, Speed and Technical Skill Performances of Young Football Players: Cross-Sectional Research

Abstract

ABS TRACT Objective: In this study, the relationships between se- lective attention, speed, agility and technical skill performances of football players were examined. Material and Methods: Eighty-six licensed male soccer players from Adanaspor infrastructure teams par-ticipated voluntarily. The means of the participants was ages (16.07±1.52 years), heights (172.08±8.71 cm), body weights (59.49±9.56 kg), and sports ages (6.17±1.83 years) respectively. Par- ticipants were implied the d2 attention test [total number of items (TN), total norm-error (TN-E), concentration performance (CP)], the Hacettepe University Football Area (HUFA) test (HUFA1=without ball, HUFA2=with ball) for technique skills, the 30 m Sprint Test (30 m-ST) and the Illinois Agility Test (IAT). Besides, a short form was used to determine for the characteristics of participants. In addition, participants were compared according to the categories of play position and league. One-way analysis of variance was used for statistical evaluations. It was preferred to use the Bonferroni test to determine which group caused the difference. Pearson correlation coefficient was calculated in order to determine the relationships between the variables. Results: In statistical analysis, a low-level negative significant rela- tionship was found between TN and the results of HUFA1 (r=-0.25), HUFA2 (r=-0.25) and 30 m-ST (r=-0.24) (p ≤ 0.05). A low-level nega- tive significant relationship was found between TN-E, HUFA1 (r=-0.24), HUFA2 (r=-0.32) and IAT (r=-0.22) and 30 m-ST (r=-0.22) results (p ≤ 0.05). A low-level negative correlation was found between CP and HUFA2 test (r=-0.31; p ≤ 0.05). Conclusion: We can suggest that selective attention-related practices that can be done during training can be particularly effective on athlete technical skill performances.