Aggression and fouls in professional football

Abstract

SummaryStudy aim: To assess the frequency, timing, zone and player category of fouls and of aggressive behaviour in professional football. Material and methods: Video recordings of 17 matches played by one team out of 18 of the Turkish Football Super League with all other teams were analysed with the use of observational foul analysis form. The following criteria were considered: time, score of the match, zone, players' position and foul category. The fouls were analysed in 6 periods of a match, 15 min each. Foul location in the football field was analysed in four zones according to player's positions: Defence, Defence mid-zone, Offensive mid-zone and Attack. Results: Eleven out of 17 analyzed matches 11 were won, 3 were lost and 3 were even. A total of 652 fouls were recorded, mean numbers of fouls per match amounting to 24.2, 87.0 and 41.7 in won, lost and even matches, respectively. Most of the fouls (50.8%) were committed by middle zone players mostly in the defensive and offensive middle zones (33.9%). Only 1.2% of all fouls were unintentional, 11% were intentional, hostile, the other ones were intentional, instrumental. Conclusions: The fouls could be attributed to the social learning theory that values the environmental factor in the cognitive process of aggression. The presented results may be of help to football coaches and sport psychologists teaching players how to control aggression and how to play the game wit minimum harm while increasing their performance.

Foul play is associated with injury incidence: an epidemiological study of three FIFA World Cups (2002–2010)

“…Hawkins and Fuller30 did not find a correlation between free kicks and injuries in the 1994 FIFA World Cup, using video analysis and media coverage as injury data, making direct comparisons difficult. A tendency of high foul frequency in the beginning of a match resulting in high total foul rates in a match has been shown, in the Turkish Football Super League 31. Whether or not the association between the number of injuries and fouls is caused by an increasing number of foul play injuries could not be assessed.…”

The Dirty League: English Premier League Provides Higher Incentives for Fouling as Compared to other European Soccer Leagues

“…This is evident from the cross-validation scores in Table 4 , which show a lower standard deviation for R 2 scores while predicting GA as compared to the Pts. A large number of fouls committed at the elite level are intentional ( Gümüşdağ et al, 2011 ; Wright and Hirotsu, 2003 ). Hence, further research on tactical fouls, the foul's position, and change in the expected goal (XG) after the foul is needed.…”

“…The results of YCFNorm may suggest that while committing fouls worthy of a yellow card may be a bad strategy for success overall, in the EPL committing yellow card worthy fouls seems to be beneficial. It may also suggest that most of the yellow cards received partly indicate tactical fouls as it is harder to get a yellow card in the EPL due to lower strictness levels of referees while calling fouls and giving yellow cards in this particular league ( Gümüşdağ et al, 2011 ; Unkelbach and Memmert, 2008 ). It should be noted that the CV results indicate that the standard deviation on the R 2 values is high, which leads to low reliability of the given model and the effects of YCFNorm suggest a need for further investigation on fouling behavior in the EPL with a more extensive and more detailed sample including the location of foul, the position of players, etc.…”

“…Fouls and cards (yellow and red) are a measure of evaluating the fairness of play in soccer. They have been examined from an ethical standpoint as methods for assessing aggression in soccer players ( Gümüşdağ et al, 2011 ; Sapp et al, 2018 ; Tanamati Soares, 2016 ). A study on 130 unsportsmanlike fouls in men’s and women’s basketball games from Olympics, European and World championships showed an overall advantage in the outcome of the game to the team with more fouls ( Gómez et al, 2016 ).…”

“…In contrast, yellow cards and red cards lowered the winning probability. Another study based on 17 matches in the Turkish Super League concluded that only 1.2 percent of all fouls were unintentional, indicating that players intentionally commit the vast majority of the fouls ( Gümüşdağ et al, 2011 ). Based on a limited sample size, this finding warrants further investigation of fouling behavior as a tactical strategy and its relationship with game success in professional soccer leagues.…”