Influências dos aspectos socioculturais na formação de jovens atletas de futebol: um estudo com atletas da categoria sub-17, oriundos de outras regiões, em um clube cearense

Abstract

Football is the most popular sport in the world. Perhaps few things are as significant for the construction of national identity as football. Football in Brazil has been an activity of enormous social and economic importance. The transition through different clubs, cities, states and countries is necessary to establish and consolidate the career of a football player, and with that, the social and cultural aspects can influence the game of football and the training of athletes from the base categories, which they live in the clubs' facilities and arrive, for the most part, without any affective-cultural information about the place where they will live and the club itself. Because it is a possible social problem, due to the existing conflict of cultural identity that results from this transition of soccer players in general, it is important to understand how misinformation about the local culture can affect the athlete, not only in the professional field, but also in personal matters of the individual. Knowing this, the general objective of the present study is to analyze the influences of the sociocultural process in the formation of young soccer athletes of a club from Ceará, and proposes to answer this question, based on the application of a closed questionnaire, with a group of 20 players of the under-17 base categories, of a football club from Ceará, in addition to the basis of the researched literature. Considering the specific objectives of the work, it is observed that, in comparison to the home clubs, the athletes mention difficulties such as communication and adaptation to the very hot climate. With regard to the sociocultural characteristics observed at the club from Ceará, it is noted that some of the athletes felt welcomed, while others saw the need for greater dialogue on the part of the club's professionals with their players. Regarding the difficulties faced when moving to another region, the lack of interaction with family and friends is the most mentioned factor. Of the advantages noted by athletes in this transfer process, beaches and cuisine stand out. For a better adaptation, the factors most suggested by the participants were: more dialogue with the athletes; improving the structure of the club; promote integration and leisure events; provide athletes with the experience of getting to know the club and the place where they live; ensure athletes experience part of their local culture. Based on the initial hypothesis, it is possible to conclude that sociocultural aspects can indeed influence the performance of under-17 athletes.