Differences in self-assessed tactical skills and perceived game-specific competence between elite and non-elite youth soccer players

Prescott Mahlangu; Alliance Kubayi

doi:10.2478/bhk-2026-0008

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Differences in self-assessed tactical skills and perceived game-specific competence between elite and non-elite youth soccer players

Biomedical Human Kinetics

Volume 18 (2026): Issue 1 (January 2026)

By: Prescott Mahlangu and Alliance Kubayi

Open Access

|Apr 2026

Figures & Tables

Tactical skills between elite and non-elite players (significant **p < 0.01)

Perceived game-specific competence between elite and non-elite players (significant at **p < 0.01)

Correlation coefficients of the study variables

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
1. Competitive level	—	0.116	−0.341**	−0.579**	−0.368**	−0.526**	−0.488**	−0.528**	−0.416**	−0.403**
2. Age		—	0.247**	0.065	0.066	0.071	0.033	0.103	0.082	0.200*
3. Playing experience			−	0.356**	0.292**	0.341**	0.287**	0.320**	0.265**	0.372**
4. Knowing about ball actions				—	0.772**	0.826**	0.667**	0.821**	0.698**	0.564**
5. Knowing about others					—	0.783**	0.650**	0.732**	0.658**	0.593**
6. Positioning and deciding						—	0.802**	0.865**	0.747**	0.673**
7. Acting in changing situations							—	0.754**	0.673**	0.723**
8. Offensive skills								—	0.869**	0.725**
9. 1v1 skills									—	0.704**
10. Defensive skills		.								—

Tactical skills predicting perceived competence among youth soccer players

	Offensive skills			1v1 skills			Defensive skills
	B	SE B	β	B	SE B	β	B	SE B	β
	Step 1
Competitive level	−1.17	0.19	−0.49**	−0.91	0.21	−0.38**	−0.87	0.21	−0.35**
Age	0.10	0.06	0.12	0.08	0.07	0.09	0.16	0.07	0.19*
Playing experience	0.04	0.03	0.12	0.04	0.03	0.11	0.07	0.03	0.20*
	Step 2
Competitive level	−0.10	0.04	−0.04	0.18	0.01	0.18	−0.15	0.19	−0.06
Age	0.04	0.02	0.06	0.05	0.04	0.05	0.13	0.05	0.15*
Playing experience	−0.01	0.08	−0.02	0.02	−0.02	0.02	0.04	0.02	0.10
Knowing about ball actions	0.31	0.07	0.31**	0.12	0.22	0.12	−0.09	0.12	−0.09
Knowing about others	0.04	0.10	0.04	0.11	0.11	0.11	0.19	0.11	0.18
Positioning and deciding	0.46	0.06	0.43**	0.15	0.33	0.15*	0.14	0.15	0.13
Acting in changing situations	0.15	0.13	0.16*	0.09	0.20	0.09*	0.48	0.09	0.50**

References

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Articles in this issue

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/bhk-2026-0008 | Journal eISSN: 2080-2234

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Language: English

Page range: 80 - 87

Submitted on: Jul 5, 2025

Accepted on: Mar 1, 2026

Published on: Apr 20, 2026

Published by: University of Physical Education in Warsaw

In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services

Publication frequency: 1 issue per year

Keywords:

Soccer,

Tactics,

Skills,

Competence,

Football

Related subjects:

Medicine,

Basic medical science,

Basic medical science, other,

Clinical medicine,

Public health,

Sports and recreation,

Sports and recreation, other,

Physical education

© 2026 Prescott Mahlangu, Alliance Kubayi, published by University of Physical Education in Warsaw
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Volume 18 (2026): Issue 1 (January 2026)

Differences in self-assessed tactical skills and perceived game-specific competence between elite and non-elite youth soccer players

Figures & Tables

Figure 1

Figure 2

Correlation coefficients of the study variables

Tactical skills predicting perceived competence among youth soccer players

Paradigm

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