Speaker
Description
Almost all talented Norwegian footballers follow a dual career trajectory during their teenage years and secondary school. This is because Norwegian football values sustainable talent development and realises that only pursuing the sporting talent is problematic. Academic talent, however, has not traditionally been part of how we understand the concept of a football talent. An abductive research strategy has been employed in this project, which seeks to explore the consequences of the professionalisation of Norwegian football talent development. Players on one academy team and coaches in the academy were observed and interviewed during one season. From this it appeared that players and coaches were emphasising the academic talent more than expected. Interviews of players highlighted the role education plays for them. Coach interviews showed the undesired important role they and the club played in creating this understanding of talent. To understand how this talent concept has developed, Habermas’ theory of communicative action was used looking at both how communicative and strategic action influences the development. Furthermore, communicative action offers potential for an interesting reflection of how to involve research and the talent development community in the discussion about how talent is defined and what consequences come from this.
