PONE-D-24-23052Consensus on Maturity-Related Injury Risks and Prevention in Youth Soccer: A Delphi Study.PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Sullivan,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

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Julio Alejandro Henriques Castro da Costa

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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2. Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Thank you for the opportunity to review this article. This paper seems really a good contribution to the literature with its strong sides such as seeking for a consensus. I congratulate authors for the well-structured, well-applied and strong methodology and results in particular. As stated by the authors, although the number of participants is just below the suggested numbers, there is still quality data saying a lot to the reader.

However, I have some concerns about the citations and statements in the article. I suggest authors to think twice while using the word “holistic development”. Throughout the paper, there are some places this phenomenon mentioned but I believe that it is not appropriate to do so. For example, in the sentence starting on Line 705 “This study highlights that maturity related data is collected and used holistically, to support the long-term development of players from physical, performance-related and psychosocial perspectives, but not for recruitment or retain/release decisions.”, here in this study I cannot see any concern or statements for psychosocial or emotional perspective even in participants’ notes provided as supplements. Another one might be the sentence starting on Line 521 “Firstly, maturity-related data collection is completed for multiple purposes, to support the long-term development of players from a holistic perspective (12).” I think the paper cited here with number 12 does not have any connotation for collecting data with a holistic perspective either. So, I suggest authors to think twice on the phenomenon (i.e. holistic development/perspective) and do the revisions accordingly in their paper.

Moreover, for some citations throughout the paper, I suggest authors to go to the very first paper saying/showing/presenting/giving that specific finding or suggestions. For example, in the sentence starting on Line 70 “For example, youth players of the same chronological age group can vary in biological maturity by as much as 5-6 years (2).”, here the paper cited with number 2 does not have any data regarding 5-6 years difference. So, the very first source should be found and cited here which have this finding! Again, in the sentence starting on Line 111 “These findings suggest that the non-invasive methods used to assess maturity status and timing in youth players are largely unreliable, which could have negative consequences for players’ injury risk (2)”, the same cited paper number 2, does it say so? Does it say that the degree of non-invasive methods’ predictions on maturity status and timing has negative consequences for players’ injury risk? Does this article really suggest so? Are they “largely” unreliable? Lastly, can authors check whether it is citation number 3 or number 1 suggesting the statement in the sentence starting on Line 71 “The variability in the timing of the adolescent growth spurt (occurring between 13-15 years in boys)can offer additional complexities for performance staff who wish to implement injury risk and training load management strategies (3, 4). So, again, I suggest authors to think twice for their citations.

Lastly, I suggest authors to stress more and explain why they chose Delphi design because I really think that it is important for this study and makes the article stronger.

Overall comment: I congratulate authors for their work. The manuscript seems strong with its methodology but I have some concerns with statements and citations. So, I suggest minor revision and would like to see the paper again after revisions.

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Reviewer #1: No

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PONE-D-24-23052R1Consensus on Maturity-Related Injury Risks and Prevention in Youth Soccer: A Delphi Study.PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Sullivan,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Nov 13 2024 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Julio Alejandro Henriques Castro da Costa

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

********** 

2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

********** 

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

********** 

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

********** 

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

********** 

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Thank you for giving me the opportunity for reviweing this manuscript and I congradulate the authors for their great work and effort again. To me, in its current form, the manuscript looks a good contribution to the literature. I only have one concern for a citation that I have explained below. Again, congradulations to the authorial team.

Line 91 in the revised document provided to me: You have cited “Johnson, A. Monitoring the Immature Athlete. Aspetar Sports Medicine Journal. 2015; 4(1)” for your statement “For example, youth players of the same chronological age group can vary in biological maturity by as much as 5-6 years”. My question again: Does this article have empirical hard data or is it written there with referencing to another article? The answer is: Johnson (2015) did not have it either and just cited another previous paper for this statement which is “Johnson, A., Doherty, P. J., & Freemont, A. (2009). Investigation of growth, development, and factors associated with injury in elite schoolboy footballers: prospective study. BMJ (Clinical research ed.), 338, b490.”. However, Johnson et al. (2009) also used this information in their article as “In youth sport, chronological age is the usual method of dividing children into age related training and competitive groups, but between individuals in the same age group this can differ by as much as four years from skeletal age” and cited “Malina RM, Pena Reyes ME, Eisenmann JC, Horta L, Rodrigues J, MillerR. Height,mass and skeletal maturity of elite Portuguese soccer players aged 11-16 years. J Sports Sci 2000;18:685-93”. So, here we see that the original data comes from Malina et al.’s (2000) study related to that 5-6 years difference. So, please cite Malina et al.’s study instead of Johnson’s study for your statement because the hard data comes from Malina et al’s study. That would be ethical to giving their credits and dues considering the work they did.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

**********

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Consensus on Maturity-Related Injury Risks and Prevention in Youth Soccer: A Delphi Study.

PONE-D-24-23052R2

Dear Dr. Sullivan,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

An invoice will be generated when your article is formally accepted. Please note, if your institution has a publishing partnership with PLOS and your article meets the relevant criteria, all or part of your publication costs will be covered. Please make sure your user information is up-to-date by logging into Editorial Manager at Editorial Manager® and clicking the ‘Update My Information' link at the top of the page. If you have any questions relating to publication charges, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Julio Alejandro Henriques Castro da Costa

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

**********

2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Thank you for giving me the opportunity for reviweing this manuscript again and I congradulate the authors for their great work and effort. To me, in its current form, the manuscript looks a good contribution to the literature. Congradulations again.

**********

7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

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