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Relative Age Effect and How It Applied to the US Performance at the World Cup
Published: July 24, 2014
Research by Dave Oleson and Greg Laughlin of Statwing found that players born earlier in the calendar year were significantly more represented at the 2014 World Cup than those born in the latter months. In fact, there were approximately half as many players born in the month of December as those born in January.
The reason for this disparity is what is called the relative age effect (RAE). As Oleson cites, it is a phenomenon that also has been observed in the National Hockey League (via Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports), Major League Baseball (via Slate), and English grade school test scores (via The Institute for Fiscal Studies, UK).
RAE is a fundamentally simple phenomenon. In football, young players are placed by age. For example, those born between January 1 and December 31 of 1995 are eligible for the under-19 European Championship currently being played in Hungary.
A player born in early January is almost a full year older than one born in late December. And although this reality is of little importance for athletes in their mid-20s and up, it can have a huge effect on teenagers.
During the teens, even a few months' more or less physical, mental and emotional development and technical training can make a huge difference on a player's perceived quality. Those born in October, November and December in many cases will fall through the cracks of what is an imperfect system that leaves them at a relative disadvantage.
In the United States, academy football is structured somewhat differently than it is in the majority of the world abroad. But the relative age effect is still observed in the American game, with two peaks due to there being two ...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - International Football
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