Would you like your son to be an elite athlete? Well, the first thing you should know is that although all parents want that for their children, the ideal is that you take that idea out of your head so as not to harm your childhood, your wishes and choices (A child should end up being what he wants to be, and not what his parents want him to be).
That said, we go to the second thing that every parent should know, and not because of how it affects his son, but above all because of curiosity and culture: Children born in the first months of the year are more likely to be elite athletes.
Great athletes will not be for being born late
According to this premise it is easy to deduce that many children with incredible conditions to excel in sports will not become the greatest athletes they could become, while others with perhaps worse conditions will succeed, for the mere fact of being born in the first months of the year.
But why? Does discrimination occur towards those born in the last months of the year? Do you look at the chips to torpedo the career of those born later?
The effect of relative age on sport
Is not that. No one looks at the cards to see when each child is born, although there is discrimination against those born in the last months of the year for a very simple matter: children are not classified in sport based on their quality, but based on your age. This is logical, in reality, because it would not make sense to put a 7-year-old child very skilled at playing with others of 10 years with the same ability, because the size of the elderly would make the progression of the child very difficult.
So what is done is to classify them according to the date of birth: baby, fry, children, cadets, ... a classification that depends of the year in which each child is born and, therefore, according to age. 10-year-olds play with 10-year-olds and 10-year-olds.
So what happens is that within 10 years there are those who have just met and there are those who are very close to turning 11, because they were born in the first months of the year. This means that they are, on average, taller, that they have more wingspan and that they may have some more skill. The difference is only a few months, but it is enough for many cases to notice and highlight those who are older.
Given this situation, coaches (this happens especially in team sports) tend to choose them when making the lineups and this makes them play more as starters, take more experience, have more confidence in their possibilities and evolve more than those who, by age, they are physically smaller, and usually play less in their competitions.
The evidence in the Spanish league
Perhaps some think it is absurd, that conditions should prevail, but it is not because, as I just said, the mere fact of playing more minutes as a starter in the training and learning age is a benefit for children born before, and there are more who reach the first division.
In 2011, a study was conducted analyzing the birth dates of Spanish league soccer players and the data were clear: 61.1% of the players were born the first half of the year, compared to 38.9% who were born in the second semester. This difference was even more pronounced when looking at the birth dates of foreign players, which are usually the ones that the teams sign to give added value: 63.53% were from the first semester, front at 36.47% that they were from the second half of the year.
Two years later, in 2013, the same authors of that study expanded the data taking those of the players of the quarries of the teams of the Spanish league and the result was clear: in the quarries 48% of the players were born in the first quarter (not semester).
When what must prevail is equal opportunities, not results
From this surprising evidence (which is not so much, but that many people do not know), it follows that what should prevail in team sport is equal opportunities, that all children can play, regardless of their athletic conditions. If the result is the result and the classification at the end of the league, then this will continue to happen and some will become elite athletes who actually have fewer conditions than others.
