Influence of Situational Variables, Team Formation, and Playing Position on Match Running Performance and Social Network Analysis in Brazilian Professional Soccer Players

Abstract

Aquino, R, Carling, C, Palucci Vieira, LH, Martins, G, Jabor, G, Machado, J, Santiago, P, Garganta, J, and Puggina, E. Influence of situational variables, team formation, and playing position on match running performance and social network analysis of brazilian professional soccer players. J Strength Cond Res XX(X): 000-000, 2018-The purpose of this study was to investigate the independent and interactive effects of situational variables, opposition team formation, and playing position on running performance and network analysis in Brazilian professional soccer players (n = 22). Global positioning system technology was used to determine total distance covered, mean speed, maximum running speed, and distance covered in 6 speed ranges. Social network analysis was used to assess interpersonal coordination (team interactions characterized as successful passes [n = 3,033] between teammates). Observations of match running performance (n = 129) and network analysis (n = 108) were obtained. The main results were: (a) no interactive effects between team formation and playing position were observed for running and network variables (unclear to possibly); (b) matches played at home or against "weaker" opponents presented greater running demands and individual/global metrics of network analysis (likely to almost certain); (c) match outcome demonstrated influence only for running performance; matches in which the reference team won resulted in higher values than in matches lost; (d) when the reference team competed in 1-4-4-2 formation, this resulted in greater running demands than 1-4-2-3-1 formation (likely to almost certain); (e) reduced values of running performance variables were reported in central defenders compared with other positions. Central/external midfielders reported greater closeness/betweenness centrality, outdegree, and eigenvector compared with central/external defenders and forwards (likely to almost certain). The results from this study provide practical information to potentially impact on physical, tactical, and technical training.

The Impact of Match Location and Players’ Physical and Technical Activities on Winning in the German Bundesliga

“…In addition, researchers indicate a number of other determinants of players’ activity during a match, including quality of opposition ( Bilek and Ulas, 2019 ), team and opposition ability ( Redwood-Brown et al, 2019 ), team formation ( Aquino et al, 2020 ), match status ( Gonzalez Rodenas et al, 2019 ), players’ age and experience ( Lorenzo-Martínez et al, 2019 ), and climate conditions ( Coker et al, 2020 ). However, during a soccer match, players experience all these factors simultaneously, which is why modern studies focus on multifactorial analyses, using advanced statistical methods ( Moura et al, 2014 ).…”

Effects of match period and playing position on the individual and collective dynamics in professional soccer: a case study

“…Previous research has shown that midfielders play a major role in organizing the team's offensive phase [16][17][18] , acting as bridges between the defensive and the offensive pitches. Additionally, midfielders usually have a box-to-box function 27 resulting in 1569 passes analyzed and converted in a weighted adjacency matrix.…”

“…Players' behavior in a match is influenced by their playing position. Central midfielders (CM) cover the highest distance in official matches 2,15 and are considered the most prominent players in building attacks 16,17 . For these reasons, we expect that CMs are demanded to explore the pitch in both the offensive and defensive phases, presenting a higher spatial exploration index.…”

Playing position specifics of associations between running performance during the training and match in male soccer players

“…The match performance in official soccer matches (i.e., external match loads) was more frequently evaluated than were training loads; additionally, the results obtained by highly sophisticated global positioning systems (Aquino et al, 2020;Modric et al, 2019) and those obtained by various video-based platforms are generally consistent (Barros et al, 2007;Bradley et al, 2009;Di Salvo et al, 2007;Liu, Yi, Giménez, Gómez, & Lago-Peñas, 2015;Vigne, Gaudino, Rogowski, Alloatti, & Hautier, 2010). Accordingly, it is evident that both (i) external training load and (ii) match performance during soccer matches are often investigated separately (Jaspers et al, 2017;Sarmento et al, 2014), while the relationship between the external match load in official matches and weekly external training load has not been sufficiently explored.…”