Elite sports pose very different challenges to athletes. Identification and development of athletic talents, therefore, requires an interdisciplinary perspective. From a sports psychology perspective, the so-called "executive functions" have come into focus in recent years. Skills such as fast decision-making, inhibiting impulses to act, or being able to switch between tasks must be studied and developed in young athletes. Within the module "Intervention Methods," the students of the M.Sc. program Exercise and Sport Science are therefore taught skills of sport psychological talent identification and development in general and with regard to executive functions in particular.
This semester, the students were able to visit the skills.lab on the FC Bayern Campus. In this unique "arena", the young players of the German soccer record champion train technical, individual tactical, and psychomotor skills. Match-like constellations are projected onto the walls of the hexagonal arena, and ball machines pass a ball to the player, who has to pass it on as the situation demands. During the tour of the arena, Timo Steidle, a participant in the module, was able to impressively demonstrate his soccer skills to his fellow students as a "player", even though Oskar Kretzinger identified some "room for improvement" with a grin. Kretzinger is head of the skills.lab, inaugurated in 2020, and has earned two sports science degrees (diploma and master's degree) at the Department of Sport and Health Sciences. He introduced the group to the FC Bayern’s Youth Academy concept and was supported by his colleague Lorea Urquiaga who presented the specifics of sports psychological support. Kretzinger then mainly explained the use of the skills.lab in talent identification and development. In video demonstrations and observing their fellow students, the students were able to link the content they were familiar with from the seminar with practical (and, in the virtual space, real-life) implementation. In the end, Felix Ehrlenspiel sums up, "We hope that with this visit we were also able to successfully support our students in their development into professionals in the field of Sport and Exercise Science - and hope that we can repeat the visit next year!"