ABSTRACT
The demand for creativity in team sports, and specifically, in a highly unpredictable activity such as soccer, has generated great interest from academics and practitioners. Creative players can bring the unforeseeable into the game that can allow teams to keep an edge over their opponents and is considered a key element of performance. Current theoretical approaches highlight that nurturing creativity in soccer should be encouraged throughout youth developmental stages; thus, practitioners must create an enriching and supportive environment for creativity to thrive. The development of creativity comprises long-term work on the part of the young player, coupled with the corresponding planning, implementation, and patience from practitioners. As such, the first part of this chapter frames the concept and presents comprehensive frameworks (e.g., the ‘Tactical Creativity Approach’ and the ‘Creativity Developmental Framework’) to aid creative play to flourish. The second part of this chapter provides a detailed description of small-sided games and movement variability features to encourage exploratory behaviour and complement soccer training tasks. Moreover, in this section, an overview of current evidence-informed interventions is centrally discussed. The third part of this chapter offers a review across creativity training programmes, such as ‘Skills4Genius’ and ‘The Creative Soccer Platform’, to provide further guidance and strategies for soccer practitioners to design for creativity-developmental outcomes. Lastly, in order to advance this field of practice, considerations for researchers and practitioners are outlined.
