There is a conflict between the objective need to improve the training of young players, the identification of promising athletes and the lack of scientifically sound methods of their selection on the indicators of physical development, physical fitness, functional status, personal psychological status. The aim of the study was to scien- tifically explain the methodology of sports selection of children for football. Methods included analysis and gen- eralization of literature and content of the Internet, questionnaires, interviews, pedagogical observation, testing, pedagogical experiment, methods of mathematical statistics. The study involved 15 football coaches and 32 nov- ice players aged 6-7 years. The study was divided into two stages. We found that the reason for dropout during the first year of training was the lack of a well-developed system of initial selection parameters. The methodology of primary selection of children for football lessons is developed and experimentally tested, consists of two parts, each of which defines the key organizational stages, tasks and relevant selection criteria. The conclusion and rec- ommendation for football was based on a comprehensive assessment of indicators and the degree of motivation to play football. The effectiveness of the developed selection method was confirmed by the increase of physical and technical fitness after 1 year of training in the group of initial training.
