Introduction In terms of cognitive abilities, research in sport has mainly focused on attention and its selected functional properties (intentionality, selectivity, concentration) and cognitive tempo (speed of stimulus processing and speed of response) (Pacesová et al. 2016). The speed of disjunctive reaction time could be one of the key factors that determines the success of interventions by soccer goalkeepers. Obetko et al. (2019) state that the speed of disjunctive reaction time should be one of the important criteria when selecting talented goalkeepers. Methods The aim of our research was to investigate and compare the level of disjunctive reaction abilities of youth soccer goalkeepers. Our research group consisted of youth goalkeepers of the football club ŠK Slovan Bratislava in the categories U19-U15 (n = 7) and youth goalkeepers of the football club FC Petržalka Academy also in the categories U19-U15 (n = 8). We did not assume significant differences in the level of disjunctive reaction abilities between goalkeepers at ŠK Slovan Bratislava and FC Petržalka Academy. We measured the level of disjunctive reaction abilities using two tests: the response to rapidly generating visual stimuli (RGS) test and the response to slowly generating visual stimuli (SGS) test. Results We didn´t find significant differences in the RGS test between goalkeepers of ŠK Slovan Bratislava (M = 9.00; SD = 0.62) and goalkeepers of FC Petržalka Academy (M = 9.05; SD = 0.62), z = 0.23; p = 0.41; r = 0.03. We found significant differences in the SGS test between goalkeepers of ŠK Slovan Bratislava (M = 25.79; SD = 0.43) and goalkeepers of FC Petržalka Academy (M = 25.60; SD = 0.44), z = - 1.65; p = 0,049*; r = 0.25. Conclusion The level of disjunctive reaction abilities is similar in the youth goalkeepers of both teams. Although FC Petržalka Academy goalkeepers are better in the SGS test, it has only very close statistical significance. We consider the main reason for the very similar level of disjunctive reaction abilities to be the same performance level of the selected goalkeepers.
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