ABSTRACT
In Brazil, soccer championships for children and adolescents are generally organized and divided into categories by age group (usually every two years), with the aim of bringing about greater balance and fairness in the competition. Although they create a certain scenario in which performance capabilities are similar among participants, such division, on the other hand, enables and sustains some conditions that provide unequal learning opportunities. Coupled with socio-cultural and pedagogical issues, it structures a phenomenon called Relative Age Effect (RAE). The objective of this study was to analyze the occurrence of RAE among male and female goalkeepers that competed in the A series of the 2018 Brazilian men’s and women’s soccer championships. Information about the athletes’ birth dates was collected from the official website of the Brazilian Football Confederation. The male group was composed of 68 goalkeepers within a population of 73 individuals, while the female group was composed of 39 of totals of 43 goalkeepers. For statistical analyses, the chi-square test was used. Results reveal that the RAE does not happen in this population, regardless of gender. This may be due to the goalkeeper position in soccer teams being less contested. It is concluded that, for both males and females, date of birth does not seem to influence the offer of opportunities for goalkeepers to reach the elite of Brazilian soccer.
Keywords:
Relative Age Effect; Sports Training; Soccer; Goalkeepers Sports