Match analysis in football: a systematic review

Abstract

The main focus of this paper was to review the available literature on match analysis in adult male football. The most common research topics were identified, their methodologies described and the evolutionary tendencies of this research area systematised. A systematic review of Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) Web of Knowledge database was performed according to PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-analyses) guidelines. The following keywords were used: football and soccer, each one associated with the terms: match analysis, performance analysis, notational analysis, game analysis, tactical analysis and patterns of play. Of 2732 studies initially identified, only 53 were fully reviewed, and their outcome measures abstracted and analysed. Studies that fit all inclusion criteria were organised according to their research design as descriptive, comparative or predictive. Results showed that 10 studies focused predominantly on a description of technical, tactical and physical performance variables. From all comparative studies, the dependent variables more frequently used were "playing position" and "competitive level". Even though the literature stresses the importance of developing predictive models of sports performance, only few studies (n = 8) have focused on modelling football performance. Situational variables like game location, quality of opposing teams, match status and match half have been progressively included as object of research, since they seem to work as effective covariables of football performance. Taking into account the limitations of the reviewed studies, future research should provide comprehensive operational definitions for the studied variables, use standardised categories and description of activities and participants, and consider integrating the situational and interactional contexts into the analysis of football performance.

Fatigue experiences in competitive soccer: development during matches and the impact of general performance capacity

“…A possible cause for the limited recovery during half time is that half time is simply too short to completely restore players' resources. The large increase in fatigue during the second half concurs well with performance decrements that are observed in the second halves of matches [11,29,30], and can most likely be explained by decrements in momentary performance capacity that result from an accumulation of workload during a match. Against expectations, even at the end of a match, in absolute terms, on average only moderate fatigue scores were observed.…”

“…Previous research has extensively described workload in soccer based on match analyses, showing differences depending on players' positions (i.e. defenders, midfielders, and attackers) [11] and indicating that a higher workload is generally associated with a more pronounced decrease in soccerspecific activity over the course of a match [11]. While this indicates that workload may induce fatigue, still little is known about the extent to which inter-and intra-individual differences in performance capacity influence this relationship.…”

Quantification of in-season training load relative to match load in professional Dutch Eredivisie football players

“…Indeed, numerous studies have provided detailed information about the external load of elite football players during matches (see Sarmento et al 2014 for a review), including acceleration and metabolic variables (Osgnach et al 2010;Varley & Aughey 2013;Russell et al 2014;Wehbe et al 2014;Ingebrigtsen et al 2015;Dalen et al 2016), since these variables have been considered both metabolically and mechanically relevant (Greig et al 2006;Stevens et al 2015). Only recently, however, several studies have described the in-season training periodization practices of elite football teams in detail, including a comparison of training days within weekly micro-cycles (Akenhead, Harley, & Tweddle, 2016;Malone et al 2015;Anderson et al 2016).…”

The ball recovery as an action related performance indicator in Football – an example using distinct operational definitions

“…It is plausible that these measures become often used in the academic world without accurate knowledge of the critters that define the operational definitions. Simultaneously, there are concerns related to a lack of operational definitions in the published papers (Carling et al, 2014;James, 2006aJames, , 2006bMackenzie & Cushion, 2013;Sarmento et al, 2014;Williams, 2012). This raises many uncertainties about the exact meaning of the performance indicator, although there is an actual awareness on the need to address this problem.…”