ABSTRACT
Coaches are regularly faced with the challenge of judging the potential talent of athletes. To do so effectively, they have to predict athletes’ possible development, taking into account various challenges (i.e., the complexity of talent, the sample of athletes, the change within the sport). Coaches usually identify and select talent based on their overall impression or ‘gut feeling’. This ‘coaches’ eye’ as a method in talent selection can be considered a form of clinical judgment, with rules or guides for decisions, or rules that are difficult to articulate. Theories from the field of judgment and decision making (e.g., actuarial judgments, heuristic decision making, or the iCodes model) can help better understand how coaches make decisions and how forecasting can be improved. It is crucial to investigate the underlying processes of the ‘coaches’ eye’ and to check the quality of coaches’ decisions.
