Assessment and Comparison of Visual Skills among Footballers

Like bodily, physiological, and psychological skills which are commonly assessed in professional sport, assessment of visual skills is also of high importance. In this regard, and in order to organize teams efficiently, the skills of each player, considering his/her post in the pitch, should be developed for superiority over the opponent. The present study attempts to clarify if there is a meaningful difference between visual skills of players, by considering their posts, age groups and sport records. A group of 100 professional footballers with average age of 25.09±4.47, average height of 178.66±6.53 cm, and average weight of 74.80±7.03 were selected, using an available sampling method. Wilson and Falkel's Sports Vision Test (2004), widely used in many researches, was the assessment tool of visual skills in this research, and is comprised of six skills of accommodation or focusing, tracking, vergence, sequencing, eye-hand coordination and visualization. The results indicated a meaningful difference which existed only in terms of tracking (p≤0.04) between adults and the youth, of which the superiority was shown by the first group. No meaningful difference was observed between post in the pitch (goalkeeper, defender, midfielder and forward) and sport record in terms of visual skills (including accommodation / focusing, tracking, vergence, sequencing, eye-hand coordination and visualization). The results of this study demonstrated a similarity between the exercise programs of team members. Coaches should notice that every post has different characteristics and the fact that in addition to specific physiological needs and skills, each post requires visual skills, and this marks the necessity for specialized planning for every post during the training sessions.