Informational constraints on performance of players in football

 

Performance analysis seeks to provide accurate, augmented information to practitioners to improve future team performance (McGarry, 2009). In football, dynamical systems theory has been suggested to explain sport performance by combining these theoretical insights with ideas from ecological psychology. Analyses have examined how of the surrounding constraints on performance (e.g. location of opponents, team-mates, the ball and goals) shape the emergence of playing configurations (Gréhaigne, Bouthier, & David, 1997). Constraints provide information that affords opportunities for players to act (Davids, Glazier, Araújo, & Bartlett, 2003). Such opportunities for action are shaped by both the performance environment and the characteristics of each performer. In this way, successful performance in sport is grounded on the performer’s ability to attend to the relevant informational variables that are needed to regulate their decisions and actions (Hristovski, Davids, Araújo, & Button, 2006). Moreover, performers are also able to identify relations between other performers (e.g. team-mates and opponents) and key environmental objects (e.g. the ball and goal in team games) that can constrain their own behaviours (Richardson, Marsh, & Baron, 2007). By perceiving opportunities for others to act, performers make use of environmental information to coordinate their actions with others. References >>

Network analysis on patterns of interpersonal coordination in Football

 

How teams perform collectively in competition is an issue that is highly topical in football. One of such methods recently proposed for analysing performance in football is networks’ analysis (Duch, Waitzman, & Amaral, 2010; Passos et al., 2011). These techniques consider football teams as complex social systems by using instruments of network analysis supported on graph theory. A graph consists of a set of nodes (or vertices) together with a set of links (or edges) that connect various pairs of nodes (Batten, 2000). Nodes may have states and links may have directions and weights. In football, we suggest each node corresponded to each one of the eleven offensive players and a linkage may be established when a player passed the ball to a teammate. The direction of the arrows indicated pass direction, i.e. the origin of the arrow represented the player who passed the ball and the arrowhead represents the player who received the ball. The width of the black arrows denoted the quantity of passes from one player to another during performance (i.e. thicker arrows illustrated more passes occurring between specific players, and thinner arrows represented fewer passes taking place among players) (Passos et al., 2011). One of the main potentials of network analysis tools is to provide understanding on the strengths and weaknesses in specific performance situations in a range of sports. By using different measurements of the topological properties of networks in several ‘units of attack’, researchers may describe attacking performance structural organization of players and teams (Passos et al., 2011). References >>

The effects of small-sided and conditioned games on skills acquisition and decision-making

 

Small-sided and conditioned games (SSCGs), also referred to as skill-based conditioning games (Gabbett, 2006) or game-based training (Gabbett, Jenkins, & Abernethy, 2009) are modified games played on reduced pitch areas, often using adapted rules and involving a smaller number of players than traditional football games (Hill-Haas, Dawson, Impellizzeri, & Coutts, 2011). SSCGs are considered to be more time efficient than traditional approach to training football, since it develops concurrently physical performance, technical skills and tactical awareness, enhancing the transfer of these acquisitions to match performance (Little, 2009). In addition, SSGs are thought to increase player compliance and motivation, since it is perceived to be sport specific (Gregson & Drust, 2000). A major aspect to bear focus is that the realization of these advantages is dependent on game design.
Most of the scientific literature published focus on how SSCGs can best be used to improve physical capacities in footballers (Hill-Hass, Dawson, Coutts, & Rowsell, 2009). Only few and not systematic attempts have tried to identify the technical requirements of SSGs (Fanchini et al., 2011; Kelly & Drust, 2009). In this sense, a major field yet to be explored concerns the understanding of the process underlying the development of the tactical awareness and decision-making through different SSCGs formats. Once produced, research should establish a link between SSCGs and the transfer of these skills to match performance (Hill-Haas et al., 2011). References >>