Effects of Pitch Area-Restrictions on Tactical Behavior, Physical, and Physiological Performances in Soccer Large-Sided Games

Abstract

Gonçalves, B, Esteves, P, Folgado, H, Ric, A, Torrents, C, and Sampaio, J. Effects of pitch area-restrictions on tactical behavior, physical and physiological performances in soccer large-sided games. J Strength Cond Res 31(9): 2398-2408, 2017-The aim of this study was to identify how pitch area-restrictions affect the tactical behavior, physical, and physiological performances of players during soccer large-sided games. A 10 vs. 9 large-sided game was performed under 3 experimental conditions: (a) restricted-spacing, the pitch was divided into specific areas where players were assigned and they should not leave it; (b) contiguous-spacing, the pitch was divided into specific areas where the players were only allowed to move to a neighboring one; (c) free-spacing, the players had no restrictions in space occupation. The positional data were used to compute players' spatial exploration index and also the distance, coefficient of variation, approximate entropy, and frequency of near-in-phase displacements synchronization of players' dyads formed by the outfield teammates. Players' physical and physiological performances were assessed by the distance covered at different speed categories, game pace, and heart rate. Most likely higher values were found in players' spatial exploration index under free-spacing conditions. The synchronization between dyads' displacements showed higher values for contiguous-spacing and free-spacing conditions. In contrast, for the jogging and running intensity zones, restricted-spacing demanded a moderate effect and most likely decrease compared with other scenarios (∼20-50% to jogging and ∼60-90% to running). Overall, the effects of limiting players' spatial exploration greatly impaired the coadaptation between teammates' positioning while decreasing the physical and physiological performances. These results allow for a better understanding of players' decision-making process according to specific task rules and can be relevant to enrich practice task design, such that coaches acknowledge the differential effect by using specific pitch-position area restrictions.

Exploring the effects of mental and muscular fatigue in soccer players’ performance

“…The players' positioning and movements are result from the interaction between the environment information and players actions, and thus, a better knowledge of players performance may be considered if the tactical and physical performances are analyzed together (Folgado, Duarte, Marques, & Sampaio, 2015;Gonçalves, Esteves, et al, 2016). Accordingly, the results also revealed a decrease in the distance covered in the high ratio, which seems to be linked with the decreased distance between dyads.…”

“…Thus, it is likely that the players' ability to undertake these high intensity efforts were constraint by the interpersonal distance between players. While there was found a decrease in the high ratio, in turn there was also an increase in the moderate and low ratios, which can be linked with the need of players to move to maintain the team synchrony (Gonçalves, Esteves, et al, 2016). That is, players may have to cover more distance in low to moderate speeds to compensate the lack of team dispersion.…”

“…Accordingly, player's movement behavior seems to be influenced by contextual and tactical factors (Badin et al, 2016). In fact, since opposing teams have shown coupling tendencies (Duarte, Araujo, Folgado, et al, 2013;Gonçalves, Esteves, et al, 2016), it is possible that the behavior of one team (without mental fatigue), attracted the opposite team (with mental fatigued) to behave in a similar fashion, resulting in identical physical performance. In contrast, in this study both teams were mentally fatigued, which may have limited the tolerance for the exercise (Marcora, Staiano, & Manning, 2009).…”

“…The dynamic positional data of players were used to determine the distance between dyads, i.e., pair of players that share the same surrounding and have the intention to achieve the same goal, from the same team (Gonçalves, Esteves, et al, 2016), the teams' stretch index (represented by the mean distances from each player to the team geometrical centers of gravity of the teams) (Travassos Fig. 1.…”

“…The SSG are modified games, that are usually performed in smaller pitches, involving a smaller number of players and with adapted rules (Hill-Haas et al, 2011). Accordingly, the SSG have been extensively used to manipulate the tasks constraints, while capturing the players physical, technical and tactical performances (Aguiar et al, 2015;Badin et al, 2016;Gonçalves, Esteves, et al, 2016;Hill-Haas et al, 2011). The results revealed that by manipulating the task constraints during SSG is it possible to change the game demands with implications in muscular and mental fatigue (Aguiar et al, 2015;Gonçalves, Esteves, et al, 2016;Gonçalves, Marcelino, et al, 2016;Hill-Haas et al, 2011;Travassos et al, 2014).…”