Talent selection and development in team and individual sports

In collaboration with sports clubs and associations such as the Dutch Royal Football Association and the Dutch Royal Lawn Tennis Association, we are designing and testing new ways to select athletes. For selection, two important foci are: 1) Provide better, more systematic ways of assessing and scouting athletes, and 2) construct test environments in which important skills (e.g., psychological, tactical, technical skills) can be assessed in the most valid way. In doing so we can come to better predictions of soccer players’ future performance. Furthermore, we examine athletes’ (e.g., soccer or tennis players’) developmental trajectories from youth to the top. In this way we hope to provide novel insights and clues for how talent development can be optimally stimulated.