A very interestng post by in New York Times by our favourite economist:
If you were to examine the birth certificates of every soccer player in next month's World Cup tournament, you would most likely find a noteworthy quirk: elite soccer players are more likely to have been born in the earlier months of the year than in the later months. If you then examined the European national youth teams that feed the World Cup and professional ranks, you would find this quirk to be even more pronounced. On recent English teams, for instance, half of the elite teenage soccer players were born in January, February or March, with the other half spread out over the remaining 9 months. In Germany, 52 elite youth players were born in the first three months of the year, with just 4 players born in the last three.
May 9, 2006 at 11:21 pm
This statistic is definately very interesting.
I remember reading somewhere else, can’t find the link of the article anymore, that in europe, most people are born in Jan/Feb/March anyways….Why? Think about what happens in the 9 month period before that time. Apr/May/June — Winter Ends — Spring Time
I know this can’t be validated, cause I can’t find the link, but it’s worth a thought.
May 10, 2006 at 11:55 am
No wonder I was never too good in such contact sports.
May 5, 2009 at 9:02 pm
hm.. amazing