How football team composition constrains emergent individual and collective tactical behaviours: Effects of player roles in creating different landscapes for shared affordances in small-sided and conditioned games
The aim of the present study was to examine how team composition of players with different roles constrains individual and collective tactical behaviours, and ball possession effectiveness, during competitive 3 vs 3 small-sided and conditioned games (SSCGs) in youth soccer players. Fifteen male players (under 15 yrs, mean age 13.2 ± 1.03 years, mean years of practice: 4.2 ± 1.10 years) from the same club participated in this study. For analysis purposes, on advice from the coaching staff, participants were categorised according to their main team performance role, resulting in sub-samples of 5 defenders (centre-backs = 2 and full- backs = 3), 7 midfielders (central midfielders = 3 and wide…
Interpersonal dynamics in 2-vs-1 contexts of football: the effects of field location and player roles
This study analyzed the spatial-temporal interactions that sustained 2-vs-1 contexts in football at different field locations near the goal. Fifteen male players (under 15 years, age 13.2 ± 1.03 years, years of practice 4.2 ± 1.10 years), 5 defenders, 7 midfielders, and 3 attackers, participated in the study. Each participant performed a game to simulate a 2-vs-1 sub-phase as a ball carrier, second attacker, and defender at three different field locations, resulting in a total number of 142 trials. The movements of participants in each trial were recorded and digitized with TACTO software. Values of interpersonal distance between the ball carrier and defender and interpersonal angles betwee…
Numerical relations and skill level constrain co-adaptive behaviors of agents in sports teams.
Similar to other complex systems in nature (e.g., a hunting pack, flocks of birds), sports teams have been modeled as social neurobiological systems in which interpersonal coordination tendencies of agents underpin team swarming behaviors. Swarming is seen as the result of agent co-adaptation to ecological constraints of performance environments by collectively perceiving specific possibilities for action (affordances for self and shared affordances). A major principle of invasion team sports assumed to promote effective performance is to outnumber the opposition (creation of numerical overloads) during different performance phases (attack and defense) in spatial regions adjacent to the bal…
The effects of an enrichment training program for youth football attackers
This work was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT, Portugal) through a Doctoral grant endorsed to the first author (SFRH/BD/ 105081/2014) under the Human Potential Operating Program (POPH). Research Project NanoSTIMA: Macro-to-Nano Human Sensing: Toward Integrated Multimodal Health Monitoring and Analytics, NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000016, Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional (FEDER) - NORTE 2020. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Clustering ball possession duration according to players’ role in football small-sided games
This study aimed to explore which offensive variables best discriminate the ball possession duration according to players specific role (defenders, midfielders, attackers) during a Gk+3vs3+Gk football small-sided games. Fifteen under-15 players (age 13.2±1.0 years, playing experience 4.2±1.0 years) were grouped according to their positions (team of defenders, n = 5; team of midfielders, n = 7; team of attackers, n = 3). On each testing day (n = 3), each team performed one bout of 5-min against each team in a random order, accounting for a total of nine bouts in the following scenarios: i) defenders vs midfielders; ii) defenders vs attackers; iii) midfielders vs attackers. Based on video, a …
Varying numbers of players in small-sided soccer games modifies action opportunities during training
This study examined the effects of the numbers of players involved in small-sided team games (underloading and overloading) on opportunities for maintaining ball possession, shooting at goal and passing to teammates during training. These practice constraint manipulations were assumed to alter values of key performance variables identified in previous research, such as interpersonal distances between players and time to intercept shots and passes. Fifteen male soccer players (age: 19.60±1.99 years) were grouped into three teams and played against each other in different versions of small-sided soccer games, in which the number of players was manipulated in three different conditions: 5 vs. …
Field location and player roles as constraints on emergent 1-vs-1 interpersonal patterns of play in football
This study examined effects of player roles on interpersonal patterns of coordination that sustain decision-making in 1-vs-1 sub-phases of football in different field locations near the goal (left-, middle- and right zone). Participants were fifteen U-16 yrs players from a local competitive amateur team. To measure interpersonal patterns of coordination in the 1-vs-1 dyads we recorded: (i) the relative distance value between each attacker and defender to the centre of the goal, and (ii), the relative angle between the centre of the goal, each defender and attacker. Results revealed how variations in field locations near the goal (left-, middle- and right-zones) constrained the relative dist…