The purpose was to study if young football players can develop theirnonvisual sensory performance, here defined as control of the ball withoutvisual feedback. In total 20 elite male football players participated in thestudy. Their mean age (±SD) was 12.1 (±0.5) years. The participants weredivided into an intervention group (n=12) and a control group (n=8). Theselection of players was based on performance in the non-visual slalom pretest. The study followed a pre- post-test design in which the interventiongroup practiced ball control without visual feedback (nonvisual sensorytraining) three times 30 minutes per week over four weeks as part of theirnormal training. The control group exercised conventional football trainingwith full vision for the same amount of time. The pre- and post-test consistedof two sub-tests performed with and without visual control: 1) a stationaryball control test and 2) a slalom course ball drive test. The results show asignificant improvement in the intervention group in both the stationary ballcontrol test (p<0.001 and Effect Size (ES)=1.59) and in the slalom balldrive test (p<0.004 and ES=1.09). The control group showed no significantchanges in performance between the pre- and post-test.
Conclusion. Nonvisual sensory skill can be significantly improved in12 training sessions of 30 minutes each in young elite male football players.