The road to expertise in U-20 football world champions: A multi-method approach

Portugal's “Gold Generation,” one of the country's most talented groups of football players, won two U-20 World Championships in 1989 (Riyadh) and 1991 (Lisbon). This study aimed to holistically describe the development of a successful generation of Portuguese national football players and retrospectively examine the factors underlying their success. Participants included 31 of the 34 world champions, the head and assistant coaches, and seven additional influential stakeholders. Guided by an ecological dynamics framework, a multi-method design was used. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and document/website analysis, and examined using qualitative (NVivo 11.0) and quantitative (SPSS 24.0) procedures. From this analysis, we proposed the “Ecological Model of Development for the Portuguese Football Gold Generation” (EMDPFGG). Findings suggest that this generation's success resulted from the players’ talent, combined with the active leadership and holistic vision of head coach Carlos Queiroz, and favourable sociocultural conditions in Portuguese football and sport sciences. Queiroz recognized the opportunities offered by the Portuguese sociocultural context and acted on them across both macro- and micro-levels of development, influencing training, organization, and long-term player growth. Overall, the results support the idea that coaches who challenge the status quo of training methodologies, and guide athletes toward higher performance, adopt ambitious, updated, and holistic perspectives on the constraints that shape the game, including physical, technical, psychological, cultural, and organizational factors. Such comprehensive approaches can overcome the reductionism that characterizes many scientific studies and practical applications that focus only on isolated aspects of football performance.