Using passing network measures to determine the performance difference between foreign and domestic outfielder players in Chinese Football Super League

Abstract

The study was aimed to identify the passing performances related to social network between domestic (Chinese) and foreign (non-Chinese) players that contributed to the offensive play according to playing positions in Chinese Football Super League. Data were collected from all 16 teams, with 63,446 passes from 8885 player observations of 346 unique players (258 domestic and 88 foreign) being filtered. Nine network metrics were adopted to assess the passing performance between two player groups. The results revealed that foreign players, especially midfielders and forwards, had increased values than domestic counterparts in passes in, indegree, stress, partner and betweenness centrality (standardised Cohen’s d range: 0.18–0.62; inference: possibly to most likely). Moreover, foreign midfielders also demonstrated higher values in passes out, outdegree and closeness centrality (0.30–0.56; likely to most likely). The analysis of passing performance allows for a better understanding of team’s attacking properties and highlights the prominent role foreign players act within the build of attack. It is possible that recruiting high-level overseas players contribute to Chinese teams’ goal scoring performance, but coaching staffs and team managers should take cautions in terms of the degree of reliance on them, as the development of domestic midfielders and forwards would be compromised.

Impact of Scoring First on Match Outcome in the Chinese Football Super League

“…Studies on match analysis in the Chinese Football Super League (CSL) have received considerable attention starting a few years ago because of its fast progress. These research studies focus primarily on key performance indicators (Mao et al, 2016;Yang et al, 2018;Gai et al, 2019), the impact of situational variables (Liu et al, 2019b), the evaluation of performance (Zhou et al, 2018(Zhou et al, , 2020, and the application of new technologies (Han et al, 2020) and complex networks (Yu et al, 2020;Zhao and Zhang, 2020). However, very few researches on the influence of key match events on CSL matches currently exist.…”

Mathematical Models to Measure the Variability of Nodes and Networks in Team Sports

“…The CH starting team were: Édouard Mendy (1); Ben Chilwell (2); César Azpilicueta (3); Thiago Silva (4); Antonio Rüdiger (5); Jorginho (6); Reece James (7); N'Golo Kanté (8); Timo Werner (9); Mason Mount (10); and Kay Havertz (11). Substitutes Andreas Christensen (12), Mateo Kovacic (13) and Christian Pulisic (14) entered the game at minutes 39, 66 and 80, with Thiago Silva (4), Mason Mount (10) and Timo Werner (9) coming out, respectively. The MC starting eleven were: Ederson (1); Kyle Walker (2); John Stones (3); Rúben Dias (4); Oleksandr Zinchenko (5); Ilkay Gundogan (6); Bernardo Silva (7); Phill Foden (8); Kevin de Bruyne (9); Raheem Sterling (10); and Riyad Mahrez (11).…”

“…The MC starting eleven were: Ederson (1); Kyle Walker (2); John Stones (3); Rúben Dias (4); Oleksandr Zinchenko (5); Ilkay Gundogan (6); Bernardo Silva (7); Phill Foden (8); Kevin de Bruyne (9); Raheem Sterling (10); and Riyad Mahrez (11). Used substitutes were Gabriel Jesus (12), who replaced Kevin de Bruyne (9) at minute 60; Sergio Aguero (13), who entered the pitch for Sterling (10) at minute 77; and Fernandinho (14), who substituted Silva (7) at minute 60.…”

“…Metrics such as degree centrality, closeness, betweenness and the eigenvector are often used to analyse social interactions in a wide variety of activities ranging from the analysis of social media networks [7,8] to team sports match performance analysis in sports such as volleyball [9,10], handball [11], rugby [12] or football [2,5,6,[13][14][15], among others.…”

Effect of tournament format change on team performance of Chinese Football Super League during COVID-19 pandemic. [Efecto del cambio de formato del torneo en el rendimiento del equipo de la Superliga de China de Fútbol durante la pandemia de COVID-19].

“…Whilst the current study provided preliminary evidence regarding the influence of format change on CSL match performance, some limitations should be noted. The first is that the absence of most foreign players, who play a crucial role in teams match strategy and tactics (Yu, Gai, et al, 2020) was not considered. Another limitation is that it is very hard to analyse the effects of the knockout format as well as the empty and neutral stadium separately in CSL.…”