An Analytical Study on the Selection of Professional Players in the Iraqi Premier Volleyball League from the Coaches’ Perspective

The importance of a professional player lies in being a player who excels over the rest of his teammates in all physical, tactical, and skill aspects. Therefore, it is required that the coach supervising the team be proficient in selecting professional players who join the team based on conditions and characteristics found in the players, and through developments in game statistics from programs specialized in match analysis. The research emphasizes the importance of selecting a professional player for the team in all aspects related to the game, which the coach must be aware of to make a suitable choice for the team. The research aims to build a form for selecting and choosing professional volleyball players from the perspective of coaches. The researcher used the descriptive method with the survey approach to suit the nature of the research problem. The research community included coaches of premier league volleyball clubs, totaling 42 coaches. The research sample was chosen intentionally, as the researcher determined the axes through a questionnaire presented to experts and identified seven main axes for the scale: (physical fitness, skill performance, tactical thinking, psychological factors, financial contracts, logistical matters, and language). Items were then built for each axis. For each axis, they were presented to the experts. Once the scale was finalized with (36) items, they were distributed to the sample consisting of (42) coaches in the Iraqi Premier Volleyball League. The researcher concluded that the study results showed that the integration of physical, skill, psychological, tactical, and linguistic aspects represents a precise scientific basis for selecting professional volleyball players. This integration contributes to achieving comprehensive and stable performance during competitions. The researcher recommends the necessity of adopting comprehensive, multi-dimensional criteria when selecting volleyball players, including physical, skill, psychological, tactical, and linguistic evaluations to ensure accurate selection and the discovery of true talents.