ANALYSIS OF THE TACTICAL BEHAVIOR OF YOUTH ACADEMY SOCCER PLAYERS

The sample comprised 400 players from four age groups (Under-11, -13, -15, and -17), who performed 23,855 tactical actions. Players' tactical behavior efficiency was assessed through FUT-SAT.

Statistical procedures included descriptive analysis and the tests Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney. The significance level adopted was p<0.05. Results indicated that the tactical behavior efficiency tends to increase over time, except for the U-15 age level, that displayed an accentuated drop in relation to the others.