Intra- and inter-group coordination patterns reveal collective behaviors of football players near the scoring zone

Abstract

This study examined emergent coordination processes in collective patterns of behavior in 3 vs 3 sub-phases of the team sport of association football near the scoring zone. We identified coordination tendencies for the centroid (i.e., team center) and surface area (i.e., occupied space) of each sub-group of performers (n=20 plays). We also compared these kinematic variables at three key moments of play using mixed-model ANOVAs. The centroids demonstrated a strong symmetric relation that described the coordinated attacking/defending actions of performers in this sub-phase of play. Conversely, analysis of the surface area of each team did not reveal a clear coordination pattern between sub-groups. But the difference in the occupied area between the attacking and defending sub-groups significantly increased over time. Findings emphasized that major changes in sub-group behaviors occurred just before an assisted pass was made (i.e., leading to a loss of stability in the 3 vs 3 sub-phases).

Space protection dynamics in basketball: Validation and application to the evaluation of offense-defense patterns

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Effect of player position on movement behaviour, physical and physiological performances during an 11-a-side football game

“…Therefore, such data may provide key information about the players' and about the intra-team coordination processes (Sampaio & Maçãs, 2012). In fact, the team centroid is a variable already described as important in football small-sided games (Duarte, Araújo, Freire et al, 2012;Frencken, Lemmink, Delleman, & Visscher, 2011), in a way to understand how players interact to create single emergent team behaviour. However, at the macro level (11-a-side game), the team centroid may exhibit very low variability and discriminative power (Frencken et al, 2012); therefore, it is likely that position-specific centroids may capture the players' tactical behaviour more accurately.…”

Intelligent systems for analyzing soccer games: The weighted centroid

“…Calculating centroid positions in a manner similar to that of Frencken and Lemmink (2008), Duarte et al (2012) analyzed 3 vs. 3 sub-phases of play in soccer games and confirmed that the predominant state was in-phase. As in two previous studies (Frencken et al, 2011;Bourbousson et al, 2010), the correlation between centroids was higher in the longitudinal axis.…”