Physical demands and physiological responses of extra time matches in collegiate women’s soccer

Physical Demands of Women's Soccer Matches: A Perspective Across the Developmental Spectrum

“…When college soccer matches end in a draw, the teams play two 10-min extra-time periods. The additional 20 min result in a 22-23% increase in total distances for extra-time matches compared with 90-min matches (Williams et al, 2019). Surprisingly, the total distances covered during extra-time were equivalent (∼1,100 m) between players who competed in the entire match or only a portion of the match.…”

“…Two studies have examined metabolic power in women's college soccer matches (Wells et al, 2015;Williams et al, 2019) but described limited outcome variables despite the ability to quantify several more (Osgnach et al, 2010). In one study, the mean high-metabolic power distance (>20 W/kg) in NCAA Division I matches was 1,839 and 440 m for regulation and extra-time, respectively (Williams et al, 2019). The total for that study (2,279 m total) is similar to unpublished data from NCAA matches (2,126 m-Table 3) that also includes stoppage-time (mean match duration, 97 min).…”

“…The total for that study (2,279 m total) is similar to unpublished data from NCAA matches (2,126 m-Table 3) that also includes stoppage-time (mean match duration, 97 min). An important consideration for practitioners is that stoppage and extra-time can substantially elevate the amount of high-metabolic power distance (Williams et al, 2019), therefore recovery strategies from those matches become more important, especially if there is little time before the next match as often is the case with the NCAA soccer schedule. Using this method (Osgnach et al, 2010) also allows for an estimation of energetic demands.…”

“…One study reported a 10% increase in energy expenditure between regular season (34 kj/kg) and post-season (38 kj/kg) college matches which was linked to an additional 700 m of total distance (Wells et al, 2015). The energetic demands were greater (48 kj/kg) in another group of Division I players (Williams et al, 2019) and even higher for NCAA teams in Table 4 (53 kj/kg). Although all were NCAA Division I teams, the ones included in Table 4 had a high national ranking (e.g., six of nine teams ranked top 30 and three ranked top 10).…”

“…Similar to the differences described for locomotor movement rates between top and bottom teams in FIFA Women's World Cup (Bradley and Scott, 2020) there are likely variations in the tempo of play across NCAA Division I that could subsequently impact energetic demands of these matches. Furthermore, the implementation of the metabolic power methodology could be modified by commercially available GPS systems (Williams et al, 2019) in order to have a proprietary competitive advantage, which could have also influenced the reported outcomes between studies (Terziotti et al, 2018). Additionally, when converting the relative energetic demands from these studies into calorie expenditure (520-770 kcal) (Wells et al, 2015;Williams et al, 2019), they are substantially lower than values obtained using heart rate derived equivalents (∼1,100-1,400 kcal) (Jagim et al, 2020;McFadden et al, 2020), thus it does not appear the outcomes from various methods can be used interchangeably.…”