- 2026-05-15
- Frontiers in psychology 17
- Miao Shen
- Sihang Wang
- Guanjie Wang
- Jiejin Zhou
- Pei Li
Study Design
- Type
- Systematic Review
- Methods
- Comprehensive search of three electronic databases: Web of Science, PubMed, and Scopus up to August 2025. Studies were included if they reported empirical data on milestone events, accumulated training hours, training structure, subjective perceptions, and multi-sport participation among players of varying competitive skill levels.
Objective
To systematically review the literature to investigate the developmental training characteristics associated with progression in professional football.Design
Systematic review.Methods
Comprehensive search of three electronic databases: Web of Science, PubMed, and Scopus up to August 2025. Studies were included if they reported empirical data on milestone events, accumulated training hours, training structure, subjective perceptions, and multi-sport participation among players of varying competitive skill levels.Results
Forty-two studies met inclusion criteria. Findings indicated that higher-level players typically initiated football involvement and reached professional academies at significantly younger ages than lower-level counterparts. In terms of training structure, successful career trajectories commonly followed a specific pattern where informal play predominated during childhood, progressively giving way to intensive coach-led practice throughout adolescence. Elite female players distinctively utilized mixed-gender activities to compensate for limited structured opportunities. Regarding perceptual factors, elite players reported markedly higher perceptions of effort and challenge during training activities. Furthermore, they demonstrated superior decision-making accuracy and pattern-recognition skills compared with non-elite athletes. Finally, data showed that most elite players engaged broadly in multiple sports during childhood, particularly invasion team games, before specializing.Conclusion
This review provides evidence that football-specific activities, particularly accumulated hours and subjective perceptions, play a critical role in shaping professional pathways. However, inconsistent effects regarding milestones and limited female-specific evidence caution against overgeneralization. Future research is required to prioritize longitudinal designs, gender-comparative analyses, and cross-cultural perspectives to refine recommendations for the optimization of athlete development systems.Systematic review registration
Open Science Framework (DOI: 10.17605/OSFIO/QNKSF).