Football · Ages 5–30 · Lee Valley, London
Know the athlete. Build the athlete.
A two-day diagnostic that measures five sides of a footballer: technical, athletic, psychological, educational and social. We record the evidence behind every score and turn it into a written development plan with a retest date.
Explore- Michael Bruce Speed & Performance
- BDRBGL
- The T.A.P.E.S.™ system
- Lee Valley Athletic Centre
The framework
Five pillars. One athlete.
T.A.P.E.S.™ stands for Technical, Athletic, Psychological, Educational and Social. A football assessment that measures only the first two describes a fraction of the player. We measure all five, score each against a written rubric, and record the evidence behind every score.
T
Technical
Sport-specific skill execution, game intelligence and technical quality. First touch on both feet, ball manipulation, speed with the ball, control in small spaces, scanning and anticipation, passing range and timing, and the quality of decisions under time pressure.
Inside the Technical pillarA
Athletic
Speed, agility, power, strength, endurance, flexibility, mobility and physical readiness. This is the most data-heavy part of the assessment: timed sprints, directional agility, jump testing, anaerobic and aerobic work, and range-of-movement measures, with every repetition recorded rather than only the best one.
Inside the Athletic pillarP
Psychological
Motivation, mindset, emotional control, cognitive processing and behaviour under pressure. How a player handles frustration, correction and a setback. It carries the heaviest weight in our football model, because in our experience it is the pillar that most often decides whether the other four improve.
Inside the Psychological pillarE
Educational
Learning, retention and application. How quickly a player understands a new instruction, how they prefer to be taught, whether they still have it next week, and whether they can use it in a drill they have not seen before.
Inside the Educational pillarS
Social
Manners, respect, humility, communication, leadership, teamwork and conduct. Recorded as observed behaviour with dates, context and examples, never as a judgement about a child's personality.
Inside the Social pillarT.A.P.E.S.™
How the five combine
Each pillar is scored against a rubric, weighted for football, and combined into a single fEuzionScore™ from 0 to 100. Most of the report is what sits underneath that number: the pillar detail, and the two or three development priorities that come out of it.
How scoring worksHow it works
From onboarding to a retest date.
The standard diagnostic runs over two sessions of 120 minutes. Everything before, during and after them is written down. Whether the two days run consecutively or are spread across a window: To be confirmed
Session lengths vary by service and by age band. They are shorter for the younger age groups and the entry-level sessions, longer for the full diagnostics. Each price on the pricing page states its own, so no single number here should be read as a promise for all of them.
Onboarding, before you travel
You complete a profile first: date of birth, club or school, position, preferred foot, height and weight, medical history and current injury status, emergency contacts, and your consent choices. We ask for parent or guardian heights where you have them, purely for growth context. Nothing is assessed until this is complete.
Day one: technical and athletic
Identity and consent are confirmed, then a readiness check on injury, soreness, illness, sleep and recent training. A full age-appropriate warm-up. Then speed, agility, power and endurance testing, football technical tasks, and video capture. Every test is demonstrated before it is performed, and your child can stop at any point.
Day two: psychological, educational, social and repeats
Questionnaires and guided tasks, a learning-and-retention task, behavioural observation across the session, and repeats of selected physical measures so we can see consistency rather than a single result. The assessor prepares your feedback from this.
The feedback conversation
We go through the report with you: strengths first with the evidence behind them, then the overall score, then each of the five pillars, then the two or three highest-value development priorities and the programme we recommend. We agree what you, your child and the coach are each responsible for, and we put a retest date in the diary before you leave.
The assessor may change the order of the day for age, weather, facility access, fatigue or safeguarding reasons. Any change is recorded.
Book a diagnosticThe report
What the report contains.
Every athlete who completes a diagnostic receives a written report and a next-step plan. Our own standard for it is short: accurate, concise, understandable, development-oriented.
- The assessment date, the pathway assessed, and the name of the assessor who did the work
- A summary outcome in plain language
- The overall fEuzionScore™, 0–100
- A pillar-by-pillar summary across all five pillars
- The key performance data, with the units and the method used to capture them
- Comparison against the relevant benchmark for age and stage, where benchmark data supports it
- Consistency findings: how repeatable the results were, not only how fast the fastest one was
- Current strengths, with the evidence from the assessment
- Two or three priority development areas, and why they were chosen
- The recommended programme, with a review measure for each objective
- A retest date
- Your data-sharing permissions, recorded and visible
“A single result is never used on its own to decide anything about long-term potential.” That rule is written into our operating standard.What happens after the report
Reading the result
What each band means.
The fEuzionScore™ places an athlete in one of four bands. A band describes a moment, measured under recorded conditions, on one day. It is a starting point for a plan.
Blue
76–100
- What it means
- Performing consistently at a high level under pressure, with control, awareness and adaptability
- What we do
- Maintain the strengths, work the marginal gains, monitor workload and progression
Green
51–75
- What it means
- Performing well, with minor inconsistencies or specific development gaps
- What we do
- Build consistency and close the named gaps
Amber
26–50
- What it means
- Functional, and needs structured development in identified areas
- What we do
- A targeted development programme with measurable objectives and a review date
Red
0–25
- What it means
- Significant gaps in one or more pillars that need addressing before progression
- What we do
- Address the fundamentals first: movement, technique, behaviour or readiness. Then reassess the support around the athlete
Red and amber identify priorities for targeted support. They are not permanent labels.
That sentence is taken word for word from our operating standard. No child is described to us, to a club, or to themselves as a colour. Every band comes with a plan and a date to be measured again.
Who it’s for
Footballers aged 5 to 30.
Football only. We assess players from five years old to senior level, and the emphasis changes as they grow. For younger athletes we weight learning, movement quality, enjoyment and developmental trajectory ahead of current physical output.
U6–U9
The focus is movement quality, learning and enjoyment. Testing is short, demonstrated and age-appropriate, and the report is written around how your child learns rather than how fast they ran.
U10–U12
The first age where the full battery is genuinely informative. Technical and athletic testing alongside learning, behaviour and social observation, with a development plan a parent and a grassroots coach can both use.
U13–U15
Growth makes results move around, sometimes sharply. This is the age where measuring consistency matters more than measuring a personal best, and where the retest cycle does most of the work.
U16–U18 and Senior
Pathway decisions, trial preparation and performance-phase development, including players already attached to an academy or club who want an independent read on where the gaps are.
Two pathways run through all age bands: one for unsigned players, one for players already attached to a club or academy. Both are set out on the programmes page.
See the two pathwaysThe venue
Assessed at Lee Valley Athletic Centre.
Every diagnostic is delivered at Lee Valley Athletic Centre on Meridian Way in north London, Dr Bruce-de-Rouche’s operating base since 1992. It has an indoor 200m six-lane track and a 130m sprint straight, so timed testing happens indoors on a measured surface. If the surface changes between visits, the retest tells you less.
Sports science and physiotherapy facilities are on site, distances are measured and marked before each session, and conditions are recorded whenever they could affect a result.
Are you a coach? You can license the standard.
A three-day certification at Lee Valley, then a twelve-month licence to deliver T.A.P.E.S.™ assessments in your own practice. Certification is earned at the event, not conferred by attending it.
Questions
Answers for parents.
The six we are asked most. There are more on the full FAQ page.
Every price is published. The five-pillar diagnostic runs from £275.00 for ages 5 to 12. The whole list, covering speed, football, strength and conditioning, diagnostics and programmes, is on the pricing page, grouped by age. We confirm the figure in writing before you book, and no deposit is taken until you have it. Whether prices are inclusive or exclusive of VAT: To be confirmed
The standard diagnostic runs over two sessions of 120 minutes: day one for technical and athletic testing, day two for the psychological, educational and social pillars plus repeat measures. The feedback conversation is separate and unhurried. Other services are shorter: 45 minutes for the younger age groups and entry-level sessions, 60 for the older age groups and the professional tiers. The typical gap between day one and day two: To be confirmed
Timed sprints over short distances, agility work in both directions, jump tests, some running endurance work, and football-specific tasks with a ball. On the second day, questionnaires, a learning task and guided scenarios. Every test is demonstrated first, the warm-up is age appropriate, and your child is told plainly that they can stop at any time.
Testing stops if an athlete reports pain, dizziness, discomfort or any injury symptom, and it stops if landing quality deteriorates during jump testing. We take medical history, current injury status, medication and allergies at onboarding, and we run a readiness check on the day. There is a first-aid kit, water and an incident-recording procedure on site. To be confirmed
Only people who need it for their role, under your recorded permissions. Sharing a report with a club, a scout or a school requires your consent first, recorded separately from your consent to be assessed. You can withdraw a permission and we record the withdrawal immediately. To be confirmed
No, and anyone who tells you they can is selling you something else. We do not offer, imply or estimate an academy place, a signing, a contract or a future value. What we produce is a record of what your child can do now, measured consistently, and the two or three things that would make the biggest difference next.
Get started
Book a diagnostic.
Tell us about your footballer. We will come back with dates, what the session involves and what it costs. There is no commitment at this stage; the first step is a conversation.
Book a diagnostic- Phone
- +44 (77) 340 91064
- Find us
- Lee Valley Athletic Centre
Meridian Way
London N9 0AS