The Influence of Anthropometrics, Physical Fitness, and Technical Skill on Performance of U-12 Youth Soccer Players in Malaysia

The present study is aimed at developing a capability index for performance in soccer and explore its differences with regards to specific skills and fitness-related attributes in the sport. A total of 87 adolescent soccer athletes aged 12 years old were recruited as participants. Relative performance namely anthropometrics, physical fitness, and soccer technical skill are assessed as dependent variables. The Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Cluster Analysis (CA) and Discriminant Analysis (DA) were used to achieve the purpose of this study. The CA analysis grouped the performance of the players into three different clusters namely; high (18 players), moderate (45 players) and low (24 players). The PCA reveals a moderate to very strong dominant range of 0.63 to 0.96 of factor loading on soccer performance. The DA analysis was applied with the defined clusters as independent variables (IV) whilst the physical, fitness, as well as the skill attributes are treated as dependent variables. It was demonstrated that a number of performance related variables could differentiate the relative performances of the players. The findings from the study highlighted the dominant attributes of U-12 Malaysian youth soccer players which could be beneficial to the coaches and players in identifying the suitable biological and physiological variables inherent to the soccer relative performance.