Numerous researches on children’s physical activity that regular sports activity positively effect physical, cognitive and socio-emotional development. This makes professional and quality work of sports pedagogues and trainers, who work with young people, very important for their further physical and personal development and, in the case of footballers, for their future sports career. In the study we tried to determine whether the current footballers, who play in the 1st Slovenian Football League (SFL) differed from the footballers, playing in the 3rd SFL in physical characteristics and motor abilities in their childhood and adolescence. Consequently, we tried to establish the possibility of predicting football performance based on motor tests. We analysed physical characteristics and motor abilities on a sample of 34 players, of whom 17 players of the 1st SFL Domžale football club and 17 players of the 2nd SFL Football Club Bravo Publikum. We analysed the results of the SLOfit - School Educational Chart motor tests, which were analysed using the statistical program IBM SPSS 24 and Microsoft Excel. We determined that in childhood and adolescence there were minor differences in speed, coordination of motion in space and explosive power in favour of today’s soccer players of the 1st SNL. When comparing the results of all 8 motor tests, we found that there were no significant differences in general physical efficiency during childhood and adolescence between the players of both leagues in any age category. The results also showed that there are weak links between the motor abilities in childhood and the subsequent sports performance in football and that there are probably other key factors that influence success in sports.
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