Talent Identification & Development◆ Through the Female Lens◆ A Six-Part Series · 2026
Female players in a team huddle
CURIOSITY · BRAIN · GROWTH · DETERMINANTS · ENVIRONMENT
Part 6 of 6 · Final Part

Talent Identification & Development Through the Female Lens

Neuropsychological Development as a Key Part of Talent ID in Football

The learning brain of the talented young female footballer.

The question shifts in this final part. Not what neuropsychology tells us about how young female players develop — but what it now asks of us in football. This is where theory has to meet practice. And in women's football, that meeting point is both urgent and full of opportunity.

Mirelle van RijbroekAuthor
2026Published
Neuropsychology · Practice · Female LensThemes
The best talent developers in women's football are not only the ones who know the game most deeply. They are the ones who know the players most fully.
Mirelle van Rijbroek · 2026
01

The Development of the Individual Player Is Central

Football is perception, communication, decision-making, and execution

"Football development can never be reduced to the training of technique alone. If the development of the individual player is truly central, the learning process must take into account the wider development of the whole player."

We begin with football itself — and specifically with the question: what is football? Football is not only a game of technique and physical execution. It is a game of perception, communication, decision-making, execution, and adaptation. Every meaningful football action involves a player who must read the team intention, decide what to do and how to do it, and execute that decision cleanly under pressure.

That means football development can never be reduced to the training of technique alone. If the development of the individual player is truly central, then the learning process must take into account cognitive and mental development, social and emotional development, motor and physical development, and the interaction between all of these over time.

Through the female lens, this connection is non-negotiable. Young female players often arrive in football with different amounts of training age, different exposure to high-quality coaching, and different levels of confidence built or eroded by the environments they have already been through. What they show on the pitch today is always shaped by more than ability alone.

Understanding this makes us better coaches, better selectors, and better developers — not because it lowers the bar, but because it raises the accuracy of what we see.

02

The Brain Plays a Central Role in Football Development

From perception to regulation — every action runs through the brain

If the brain is central to learning, behaviour, self-regulation, decision-making, and adaptation, then it must also be central to talent identification and development in women's football.

The brain influences how a young female player perceives the game — how early she scans, how quickly she reads space and teammate positions, how well she anticipates what will happen before it does. It influences how she processes information in real time, recognises patterns across the four moments of the game, and connects what she sees to what she does. It influences how she regulates emotion under pressure, handles a mistake without spiralling, and manages the social complexity of performing in a team environment.

When we speak about talent development in women's football, we are not only developing the foot, the body, or the technical action. We are also developing the systems that allow the player to think, perceive, regulate, and act in increasingly intelligent ways.

The answer to how we can influence the brain through football lies in the quality of the learning environment and in the role of the coach. The coach must challenge, stimulate, support, and guide the young female player in ways that fit her stage of development — not only her football age, but her neurological, psychological, and social-emotional stage too.

03

What Factors Help Determine Success in Women's Football?

Four dimensions — all essential at the highest level

From a football and neuropsychological perspective, success is rarely based on one quality alone. It is the result of the interaction between several factors — and in the women's game, where the speed of play and tactical sophistication continue to rise, the cognitive and psychological dimensions are increasingly decisive.

Football-Cognitive

Perception & Decision-Making

Scanning quality and frequency, speed of information processing, anticipation and pattern recognition, spatial awareness and game understanding, decision quality under time pressure, adaptability to changing game situations, and working memory during play.

Self-Regulatory & Executive

Regulation Under Pressure

Impulse control, emotional regulation under pressure, concentration and attention management, the ability to evaluate and adjust behaviour, and the capacity to recover quickly from errors — the reset, reflect, adjust, try-again cycle in practice.

Learning & Growth

Agility and Openness

Curiosity and openness to new challenges, learning agility and adaptability, responsiveness to feedback, the ability to reflect meaningfully on experience, and the inner drive to improve over time.

Social & Relational

Connection & Leadership

Communication on and off the pitch, leadership expression, team understanding, the ability to compete while staying connected to teammates, and the resilience to navigate the social dynamics of a squad environment.

These factors are not optional extras at the highest level. Technical ability without game understanding, or physical quality without decision-making and emotional regulation, rarely proves sufficient over time. Crucially, these factors develop most effectively in context — through game-based training, guided questioning, and high-quality feedback. They are not just coaching preferences. They are neurologically informed development tools.

04

Five Themes — Translated into Daily Practice

Where the series becomes practical in women's football

Each of the five earlier themes offers specific, practical implications for coaching, identifying, and developing young female players. Here is where they become daily tools.

Part 1
Curiosity

A training environment that only asks young female players to repeat is not fully doing its job. Use guided questioning, variable game problems, different positions across sessions, and short reflective moments. Rebuilding curiosity in players who have been discouraged from asking questions requires a relationship of trust — and a consistent message that exploring and being wrong are part of the process.

Part 2
Brain Maturation

Do not assume planning, emotional regulation, and deep reflection are fully in place at fourteen, sixteen, or even eighteen. Give direction without removing ownership. Help players make sense of choices rather than only correcting outcomes. Through the female lens, a player who appears inconsistent or less decisive during puberty may simply be navigating a neurological and biological transition — not declining in potential.

Part 3
The Slow-Growing Tree

Build identification systems that track players longitudinally rather than making single-snapshot decisions. Create re-assessment moments. Observe growth indicators alongside performance indicators. The player who surprises you in two years is often the player you almost overlooked today — and the question is whether your system gives her the time and the space to become what she can be.

Part 4
The Determinants

The coach who has an eye for the determinants asks not only: can she pass, press, and position? They also ask: how does she learn? How does she respond to setbacks? Does she re-engage after an error or withdraw? Through the perception-decision-execution framework, these observations become football-specific. Reading the whole player, not only her best moments, is the job.

Part 5
The Environment

Support means the player feels safe, seen, and respected — foundational for learning. Direction means helping her make sense of choices and building gradual ownership. Inspiration means opening up possibilities she cannot yet see alone — including showing her that the game belongs to her. These three roles come alive through game-based training, guided questioning, individual development conversations, and an environment where high standards and human care coexist.

05

What This Asks of the Coach in Women's Football

A wider and more demanding role than delivering football exercises

If all of this is taken seriously, the role of the coach in women's football becomes wider and more demanding than delivering football exercises.

Designer of Learning Environments

Creating training sessions and team cultures that stimulate perception, decision-making, communication, and reflection — not only technical execution. The quality of what is built around the player shapes what she becomes.

Guide in Development

Helping players grow not only in football actions but in how they understand themselves, manage pressure, and take ownership of their development journey. Connecting today's learning to tomorrow's growth.

Provider of Support and Challenge

Holding the balance between psychological safety and meaningful demand. A coach who creates genuine psychological safety does not lower standards — they create the conditions under which standards can actually be reached.

Educator Through Football

Bringing awareness of puberty, confidence, body change, and how environment and opportunity have shaped the player before she arrived. A coach who brings that awareness to every session is not doing less football. They are doing better football.

The person and the footballer are inseparable. Developing one always means attending to the other.

06

Towards Optimal Development: From Talent to Top

The conditions that give each young female player the best possible chance

"Optimal development is never a fixed endpoint. What we can define is the set of conditions that give each young female player the best possible chance to reach the highest level within her own bandwidth of potential."

Helping the player grow across the core demands of elite development in the women's game means developing football intelligence and quality, improving performance through structured and meaningful learning, building the habits and identity of a top athlete, and contributing to the growth of the game itself.

It also means helping the young female player become a better learner, a more self-aware competitor, a more adaptable teammate, and a more complete person. In the women's game — where pathways are still being built and environments are still developing — the player who can grow across these dimensions is the player who will be best equipped for everything the game asks of her.

This process is not linear. It will include moments of doubt, of inconsistency, of stepping back before stepping forward. That is the nature of development. The question is whether the environment around the young female player gives her the time, the belief, and the consistent support she needs to keep moving.

07

What Coaches and Clubs Can Do

Translating six parts into daily observation, coaching, and systems

Knowing about the brain is not enough. The test is whether that knowledge changes what we observe, how we respond, and what we build in our sessions, our conversations, and our systems.

◆ For Coaches
  • Observe deeply — across motor, cognitive, psychological, and social dimensions, not only football actions
  • Connect what you see on the pitch to the wider developmental stage of the player
  • Adjust support and challenge to the individual — not every player needs the same thing
  • Return to the same developmental themes across time — single-session learning rarely transfers immediately
  • Support players in processing both success and failure, not only judging outcomes
  • Build evaluation conversations that go deeper than the "right answer"
  • Stay curious about the person behind the player — that curiosity is part of the coaching
  • Remember: a coach who understands development is not doing less football — they are doing better football
◆ For Clubs
  • Build identification systems that track players longitudinally, not only at single snapshot moments
  • Create re-assessment moments across the pathway to protect late developers
  • Observe growth indicators alongside performance indicators
  • Educate staff in neuropsychological development and the female developmental context
  • Build coach competencies in observing across cognitive, emotional, and social dimensions
  • Create an environment where high standards and human care coexist consistently
  • Invest in the quality of the learning environment — it is the primary lever through which potential is developed or lost
  • Ask not only what the player brings — but what the environment is bringing to the player
Closing Reflection — Takeaways from the Whole Series
1

Curiosity — Awaken it deliberately

The young female player who is allowed to wonder, to search, and to discover is developing more than football skill. She is developing the inner drive that will carry her forward long after any individual coaching session ends.

2

Brain Maturation — Read development, not just performance

What a young female player shows on the pitch is always a partial picture. The brain is still building. Puberty is a transition, not a setback. Patience is not passivity — it is wisdom about timing.

3

The Slow-Growing Tree — Protect the late developer

Every system that selects only for early performance loses players it did not need to lose. The slow-growing tree needs time, belief, and access. Giving her those things is not charity — it is talent development done properly.

4

The Determinants — Look deeper than the action

What a player does on the pitch is always shaped by factors beneath the surface — confidence, history, neurology, support. The coach who sees the whole player sees more of the potential.

5

The Environment — Build environments that grow people

Challenge without safety produces anxiety. Safety without challenge produces stagnation. The right combination — with direction and inspiration added — creates the conditions for genuine development.

6

Neuropsychology in Practice — Integrate the understanding

Knowing about the brain is not enough. The test is whether that knowledge changes what we observe, how we respond, and what we build in our sessions, our conversations, and our systems.

Final Reflection

If we accept that the brain plays a major role in talent development, then football education in the women's game must do more than train actions.

It must understand the learner.

To look deeper.
To judge and evaluate more carefully.
To guide more thoughtfully.
And to create environments in which young female players are not only trained — but truly supported in their growth.

Because in the end, talent development in women's football is not only about identifying what is already visible. It is about helping potential unfold over time — with understanding, with patience, and with a commitment to seeing the full person behind every player.

← Part 5 Part 6 of 6 · Talent Identification & Development Through the Female Lens Back to Introduction

This article is the sixth and final part of a series exploring talent identification and development in football through the female lens. The series is inspired by the work of Professor Jelle Jolles and builds on earlier work developed together with Annemarie van der Eem, in which insights from brain development, learning, and environment were connected to the development of young people.


Mirelle van Rijbroek | 2026