Elite Youth Soccer in Germany and Japan: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Player Cognitions, Training Climates, and Perceived Coach Behaviors

Background: This study serves as an extension to previous cross-cultural research with German and Japanese youth swimmers (Alfermann, Geisler, & Okade, 2013), which found that competitors in Japan reported a stronger ego orientation, higher scores on combined task and ego emphases, more competition-oriented training climates, and less of an overall connection in coach-athlete interactions.

Aims: The current investigation thus sought to follow up with a team sport focus in the same two countries by examining sport-specific self-efficacy, fear of negative evaluation, goal orientation, perceived motivational climate, and perceived coach behaviors amongst elite-level youth soccer players. The comparison was rooted within the cross-cultural framework of individualism/collectivism, with the German participants regarded as representatives of an individualistic country. The Japanese players were assumed to stem from a less individualistic but more competitive culture in which winning is of paramount importance.

Method: Participants were comprised of 209 male and 115 female players from U15 to U18 teams in both nations. Data were obtained via scales of self-rated soccer abilities as well as subscales of the Task and Ego Orientation in Sport Questionnaire (TEOSQ), Fear of Negative Evaluation (FNE), Perceived Motivational Climate in Sport Questionnaire (PMCSQ), Leadership Scale for Sports (LSS), and the Coach-Athlete Relationship Questionnaire (CART-Q). Multivariate and univariate analyses were conducted on the data, with nation as the independent factor. Regression analysis was also performed to measure associations between player satisfaction and coach variables.

Results: As expected, the Japanese players showed similarities with the previous swimming sample in that they reported higher ego and lower task orientation than the German players as well as more performance-oriented climates and less training and instructional behavior from their coaches. They also reported less closeness in coach-athlete relationships. There were no significant differences in other coach behaviors, but players in Japan were less satisfied with their coach and training than those in Germany. In addition, the German players’ self-rated abilities were higher than the self-ratings of the Japanese, and an interaction effect was found for Gender X Nation in FNE scores.

Discussion and Conclusions: The team sport findings here were similar to the results obtained with individual sport athletes in a previous study. This lends support to the notion that differences between the German and Japanese youth competitors were largely a function of cultural influences—namely, features of individualism/collectivism and the competitive sport ethos within the two nations.