The Loughborough Soccer Passing Test has impractical criterion validity in elite youth football

Passing ability is of great importance in the development of young football players. The Loughborough Soccer Passing Test (LSPT) was developed to assess short-distance passing ability under time pressure, in a controlled environment. While the test has strong discriminant validity and acceptable test-retest reliability, no information exists on its ability to predict passing performance during a game. The aim of the present study was to assess the criterion validity of the LSPT in elite youth football players. Twenty-four outfield male players from an U18 state-representative team performed the LSPT. Criterion measures of passing performance overall and in high-difficulty scenarios were provided by video analysis of the first eight subsequent games of a competitive season. Validity was quantified as Pearson's correlations between the LSPT score (total and time-only) and the two criterion measures, adjusted for reliability of the criterion measures. The adjusted correlations ranged from 0.30 (90% confidence limits -0.17, 0.74) to 0.47 (-0.02, 0.97), representing impractical to very poor validity. No variable from the game video analysis in isolation (e.g., pass direction, pass location etc.) had a meaningful correlation with the LSPT scores. In conclusion, our results do not support the use of the LSPT as a valid test of in-game passing performance in this cohort of youth players.