Evolution of technical activity in various playing positions, in relation to match outcomes in professional soccer

Abstract

The study presented below aimed to examine the position-specific evolution of technical activity among soccer players and how it is related to match outcomes over three consecutive domestic seasons in Germany’s Bundesliga. The research was based on a sample of 13,032 individual match observations of 556 soccer players during the 2014/2015, 2015/2016 and 2016/2017 seasons. These players were classified into five positional roles: central defenders (CD), full-backs (FB), central midfielders (CM), wide midfielders (WM) and forwards (F). The activity of the players was analysed using the Impire AG motion analysis system. Our study indicates that over the course of the three seasons: 1) the total numbers of shots by CMs decreased in the case of won or drawn matches; 2) the number of passes by CD players increased in matches won, and by CM and WM players in matches won, drawn and lost, whereas percentage pass accuracy increased at the CM position in won and drawn matches; 3) players at each position engaged in a substantially smaller number of duels, no matter what the match outcome, while the percentage of encounters won in subsequent seasons decreased among CD, and increased among WM in matches won and at F positions in both won and drawn matches. This research clearly shows that the evolution of technique among professional soccer players is heading in the direction of increased accuracy, with a simultaneous stabilisation of, or even a decline in, the number of activities engaged in.

Evolutionary Trends of Players’ Technical Characteristics in the UEFA Champions League

“…Another concern is that the number of crosses continuously decreased and the number of long balls slightly changed among the period of nine seasons, while the percentage of the aerial wins observed a significant increase, especially from the season 2012/2013. This result is in line with the study of Konefał et al (2019) on the German Bundesliga. As the aerial duels usually occurred from crosses and long balls (Liu et al, 2016a), our findings may indicate that the decrease of the crosses has a negative impact on the appearance of the aerial duels.…”

“…This finding is in line with a study on the English Premier League from Barnes et al (2014) in which the evolutionary trends of players' technical performance were identified based on a period of seven consecutive seasons. Nevertheless, opposite changes were observed in Germany's Bundesliga, the number of total shots decreased among playing positions during season 2014/2015 to 2016/2017 (Konefał et al, 2019). This disparity may be due to the relatively smaller database used (three seasons); the identified longitudinal performance characteristics cannot be compared with the seven-season and nine-season period studies.…”

“…Subsequent research from Barnes et al (2014) in the English Premier League found that the total number of passes made by players per match increased by 40% and the number of short and medium passes increased, but long passes varied little across the timeframe of the study (season 2006/2007-2012/2013). Furthermore, more detailed research has also been conducted that attempts to identify the long-term trends of the technical characteristics in European domestic leagues considering the effects of playing positions (Bush et al, 2015b), team quality (Bradley et al, 2016), player identity (Bush et al, 2017), and match outcome (Konefał et al, 2019). However, each national league was characterised by different specificities and behaviours of match play (Dellal et al, 2011;Oberstone, 2011).…”

Data-driven team ranking and match performance analysis in Chinese Football Super League

“…Furthermore, a bad shot rate has a great negative impact on the match outcome. The results corroborate the previous finding that shots on target essentially affects the probability of winning in CSL [36] , which implied that shots accuracy and quality are key performance features in CSL games as in other top leagues [26,37] . Moreover, it is shown that shots on target and passes has strong weights in positive and negative features respectively.…”

Identification and Preference of Game Styles in LaLiga Associated with Match Outcomes

“…Probably with the intention of avoiding a comeback or once ahead on the scoreboard. The ball possession indicator is important depending on the league, although it is associated with success in the Bundesliga [32], Spanish League [6] and Premier League [33], or in international tournaments such as the World Cup [34]. Furthermore, it seems that football is evolving towards the possession game, due to an increase in the number and efficiency in passing [35], mainly in players on their defensive line [36].…”