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The Petrucci Ability Test published in the MJSSM international magazine
Palermo, October 26th, 2020 - After almost 10 years of studies and field applications, a scientific method to measure young football players' agility, tested in Palermo, is getting ready to become a new standard at an international level. It's about the Petrucci Ability Test (PAT), the study method developed by the rosanero athetic trainer Marco Petrucci, which has been published by the international science and sports medicine magazine 'Montenegrin Journal of Sports Science and Medicine' (MJSSM), in benefit to the whole world scientific community, raising the bar even higher for all studies in the fields currently used at a global scale in terms of physical and sport's agility.
In particular, professor Petrucci, along with a group of researchers from Palermo University, was able to validate a scientific test to measure the motor skills and coordination abilities of young players, and easily identify the level of agility, and other skills: especially the speed in short spaces and the ability to anticipate the adversary, but more importantly, the awareness, the ability to fastly read the game situation, imagining the movement, and taking action.
In the research project, different tests were administered to a wide range of teenagers between the ages of 10 and 13. In more than 10 years of studies and information gathering, comparing them to national statistics, Petrucci has personalized the standard tests to increase the level of precision in football: a personalized and standardized course with different sprints in different directions, and other specific movements according to a precise and innovative pattern. Thanks to this method, Petrucci was able to identify a cohort of young players, trained for years, who have later proven to be very good in sprinting and long jumping when still. Therefore, the research lets you predict other tests' performances (strength and speed), identify the most promising and skilled young players, and trace their growth through constant monitoring.
"The assessment of young players' physical shape is important in order to monitor physical performance, to plan the training process, and for the players' growth", has declared Marco Petrucci. "For me and my colleagues, a big reason to be proud of is the idea of thinking that, thousands of kilometers from Palermo, our colleagues in China or Brazil could apply our test in schools and football fields, contributing, in this way, to improve the world of football, and, above all, to value our youngsters, who are still the most precious resource in every sports club for the future".
"The PAT is a further sign of opening of the palermitan University towards the society which surrounds it", has stated professor Antonio Bianco of Palermo University, who took part in the project. "But it's also an eloquent starting point to consider the collaboration of the best energies from the territory, like the true added value of an integrated community. We have proven that Palermo can, and should be, a technical and scientific benchmark with a look into the world. We are here, and we are serious. This is proof that we should continue working all together, optimizing the resources that we have, and guaranteeing the ones who are useful".