What’s in a game? A systems approach to enhancing performance analysis in football

Abstract

PurposePerformance analysis (PA) in football is considered to be an integral component of understanding the requirements for optimal performance. Despite vast amounts of research in this area key gaps remain, including what comprises PA in football, and methods to minimise research-practitioner gaps. The aim of this study was to develop a model of the football match system in order to better describe and understand the components of football performance. Such a model could inform the design of new PA methods.MethodEight elite level football Subject Method Experts (SME’s) participated in two workshops to develop a systems model of the football match system. The model was developed using a first-of-its-kind application of Cognitive Work Analysis (CWA) in football. CWA has been used in many other non-sporting domains to analyse and understand complex systems.ResultUsing CWA, a model of the football match ‘system’ was developed. The model enabled identification of several PA measures not currently utilised, including communication between team members, adaptability of teams, playing at the appropriate tempo, as well as attacking and defending related measures.ConclusionThe results indicate that football is characteristic of a complex sociotechnical system, and revealed potential new and unique PA measures regarded as important by SME’s, yet not currently measured. Importantly, these results have identified a gap between the current PA research and the information that is meaningful to football coaches and practitioners.

Playing tactics, contextual variables and offensive effectiveness in English Premier League soccer matches. A multilevel analysis

“…For the analysis of offensive performance, recent studies have suggested that tactical performance measures should not be directly related to the probability of goal scoring, but other dimensions related to creating space and disordering the opposing defense should be considered when analyzing styles of play in soccer [24,25]. For that reason, in addition to goal and goal scoring opportunities, the analysis of successful penetration through defensive lines have been suggested as a novel dimension to study the offensive performance in recent studies [26,27,28].…”

Defining tactical competency during turnovers in Netball: Using the Delphi method to capture expert coach knowledge

“…The use of 'subjects matter experts' in the above research emphasises the need to incorporate the unique knowledge of experts into applied sports science research (McLean, Salmon, Gorman, Read, & Solomon, 2017). The Delphi method, is another method used to solicit knowledge from experts, and to collate and synthesise their opinions in order to create group consensus across multiple rounds of questionnaires (Hsu & Sandford, 2007;Mullen, 2003).…”

Using principles from the past to solve the problems of the future: Human factors and sociotechnical systems thinking in the design of future work

“…For example, contributions to this special issue cover land use planning and urban design, construction, nanotechnologies, and robotics, and road and rail transport. Moreover, other recent applications of STST and related approaches in the wider Human Factors literature have been undertaken in areas such as sport (Mclean et al, ), freight transport (Murphy, Robertson, Huang, Jeffries, & Dainoff, ), regulatory system design (Carden, Goode, Read, & Salmon, ), sustainability (Siddiqi & Collins, ), and healthcare (Carayon, ). This is encouraging to see, and further applications in new areas are encouraged (M. C. Davis et al, ).…”

“…Perhaps in response to increasing complexity levels and technology uptake in the core industries within which Human Factors is applied, recently there has been an explosion of STST within Human Factors research and practice. Notably, applications of STST and related approaches have begun to appear outside of work design, for example in the design of transport systems (e.g., Read., Beanland, Lenne, Stanton & Salmon, ; Salmon, Read, Walker, Lenne, & Stanton, ) and in the analysis of elite sport (e.g., Mclean, Soloman, Gorman & Salmon, ). The present special issue was proposed on the basis of this renewed interest in STST and systems thinking within Human Factors research and practice.…”