Could the human development index and birth-date of the players influence the climbing up to higher performance in soccer

Abstract

The present study verifies the possible influence of the human development index (HDI) and the birth-date (BD) on the climb up to higher performance in sports, considering Brazilian football context. The sample comprised all 643 players from 20 teams of the Premier Football League in Brazil. The data were collected from official website of Brazilian National Federation, United Nations Development Programme and Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics. Descriptive analysis, Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, chi-square test (X2), Pearson correlation and Kruskall-Wallis H test were carried out. The level of significance was set at α=0.05. The results suggested that contextual factors associated with size and HDI of birth-place and birthdate contribute to the achievement of the Premier Football League. Thus, players were born in the first months of the year and in cities with medium or higher HDI had more conditions to climb up the elite level of Brazilian Football.