A New Approach to Study the Relative Age Effect with the Use of Additive Logistic Regression Models: A Case of Study of FIFA Football Tournaments (1908-2012)

Overview

Journal PLoS One

Specialties General Medicine
Science

Date 2019 Jul 17

PMID 31310610

Citations 5

Authors

Miguel Saavedra-Garcia

Marcos Matabuena

Antonio Montero-Seoane

Juan J Fernandez-Romero

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The relative age effect plays an important role in the pursuit of excellence, providing advantage to athletes born at the beginning of the year or near the cut-off date. This phenomenon has been observed in areas such as sports, education or business. Traditionally, the chi-square test has been used to analyze whether there are statistically significant differences in the distribution of births in each of the four quarters of the year. However, this approach is limited, focusing only on the analysis of the response variable, without taking into account the effect of a set of predictive variables. In this paper a new approach is proposed to study the relative age effect with the use of a logistic regression additive model. The new method has been evaluated with a sample of 21,639 players involved in football tournaments organized by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) between 1908 and 2012. New conclusions have been established that the relative age effect exists regarding player age and the year of the competition in male FIFA competitions and its effect is dynamic and complex.

Citing Articles

Is the relative age effect just a European problem? A comprehensive analysis of birth date distribution and its impact on player selection at the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup.

Perez-Gonzalez B, Leon-Quismondo J, Bonal J, Ivan-Baragano I, Fernandez-Luna A, Burillo P PLoS One. 2025; 20(2):e0318116.

PMID: 39946427 PMC: 11824954. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0318116.

Relative Age Effect Analysis in the History of the Ballon d'Or (1956-2023).

Saavedra-Garcia M, Santiago-Alonso M, Vila-Suarez H, Montero-Seoane A, Fernandez-Romero J Sports (Basel). 2024; 12(4).

PMID: 38668583 PMC: 11054169. DOI: 10.3390/sports12040115.

Effects of Chronological Age, Relative Age, and Maturation Status on Accumulated Training Load and Perceived Exertion in Young Sub-Elite Football Players.

Teixeira J, Alves A, Ferraz R, Forte P, Leal M, Ribeiro J Front Physiol. 2022; 13:832202.

PMID: 35432006 PMC: 9010324. DOI: 10.3389/fphys.2022.832202.

The New Generation of Professional Soccer Talent Is Born under the Bias of the RAE: Relative Age Effect in International Male Youth Soccer Championships.

Perez-Gonzalez B, Leon-Quismondo J, Bonal J, Burillo P, Fernandez-Luna A Children (Basel). 2021; 8(12).

PMID: 34943315 PMC: 8700599. DOI: 10.3390/children8121117.

Does the Relative Age Effect Influence Short-Term Performance and Sport Career in Team Sports? A Qualitative Systematic Review.

de la Rubia A, Lorenzo-Calvo J, Lorenzo A Front Psychol. 2020; 11:1947.

PMID: 33071837 PMC: 7538615. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01947.

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