Acceleration and sprint profiles of a professional elite football team in match play

Abstract

The aim of this study was to characterise the acceleration and sprint profiles of elite football match play in one Norwegian elite football team (Rosenborg FC). Fifteen professional players in five playing positions took part in the study (n = 101 observations). Player movement was recorded during every domestic home game of one full season (n = 15) by an automatic tracking system based on microwave technology. Each player performed 91 ± 21 accelerations per match, with a lower number in the second compared with the first half (47 ± 12 vs. 44 ± 12). Players in lateral positions accelerated more often compared to players in central positions (98.3 ± 20.5 vs. 85.3 ± 19.5, p< 0.05). Average sprint distance was 213 ± 111 m distributed between 16.6 ± 7.9 sprints, with no differences between first (106 ± 60 m, 8.2 ± 4.2 sprints) and second halves (107 ± 72 m, 8.3 ± 4.8 sprints). Players in lateral positions sprinted longer distances (287 ± 211 m vs. 160 ± 76 m, p < 0.05) and tended to sprint more often (21.6 ± 7.8 vs. 13.0 ± 5.7, p = 0.064) compared to players in central positions. We found more walking and less of the more intense activities during the last third of the season compared to the first. The main finding in this study was that Norwegian elite players had substantially less number of accelerations and fewer but longer sprints than previous studies reported for higher-ranked leagues. Also, less high-intensity activity was found towards the end of the season. Ultimately, these data provide useful information for the fitness coach (1) in planning of position-specific football training and (2) to avoid the decline in high-intensity activities the last third of the competitive season.

Quantification of in-season training load relative to match load in professional Dutch Eredivisie football players

“…Whereas our study showed the total number of accelerations and decelerations above 1.5 m · s −2 (226 and 169, respectively) and 3.0 m · s −2 (61 and 58), other studies that considered matches in elite leagues (Bradley et al 2010;Varley & Aughey 2013;Russell et al 2014;Wehbe et al 2014;Ingebrigtsen et al 2015;Dalen et al 2016) used absolute thresholds of 0.5, 2.0, 2.5, 2.78, 3.0 and 4.0 m · s −2 . It is important to realize that even if there was agreement, comparison between acceleration variables measured with different tracking systems (and system versions) would be difficult (Buchheit et al 2014b).…”

“…The average total distance ran during the matches in our study (10,927 m) reflected that of top-level leagues in Europe and Australia (range 10,063-11,230 m) (Bradley et al 2010(Bradley et al , 2013Osgnach et al 2010;Manzi et al 2014;Wehbe et al 2014;Ingebrigtsen et al 2015;Dalen et al 2016). Also running (14.4-19.8 km · h −1 ) distance and high-speed running (>19.8 km · h −1 ) distance were within the range of the same top-level leagues (1614 m vs. 1612-1758 m and 738 m vs. 646-1061 m, respectively).…”

“…Indeed, numerous studies have provided detailed information about the external load of elite football players during matches (see Sarmento et al 2014 for a review), including acceleration and metabolic variables (Osgnach et al 2010;Varley & Aughey 2013;Russell et al 2014;Wehbe et al 2014;Ingebrigtsen et al 2015;Dalen et al 2016), since these variables have been considered both metabolically and mechanically relevant (Greig et al 2006;Stevens et al 2015). Only recently, however, several studies have described the in-season training periodization practices of elite football teams in detail, including a comparison of training days within weekly micro-cycles (Akenhead, Harley, & Tweddle, 2016;Malone et al 2015;Anderson et al 2016).…”

Positional Match Running Performance in Elite Gaelic Football

“…Match running performance in elite Gaelic football 10 the rules of each specific game, all of which will influence findings in addition, to the variation in speed thresholds across studies for high speed distance (23,25) . Sprint actions have been reported to have a positive effect on match outcomes within soccer (23, 25 41) .…”

Repeated Acceleration Activity in Competitive Youth Soccer

“…Reductions in acceleration capacity are found between halves and transiently during the game. Between playing halves, a decline is reported in the number of efforts (Ingebrigtsen, Terje, Hjelde, Drust, Wisloff, 2015;Russell et al, 2014;Terje, Ingebrigtsen, Gertjan, Harvard, Wisloff, 2015) and the cumulative distance (Terje et al, 2015;Akenhead, Hayes, David J. Barron, Steve Atkins, Chris Edmundson, Dave Fewtrell Thompson, Duncan, 2013;Barron, Atkins, Edmundson, Fewtrell, 2014).…”