Shaping decision-making behavior by perceiving the dynamic patterns of interpersonal coordination in futsal

Doutoramento em Motricidade Humana na especialidade de Ciências do DesportoThe aim of this thesis was to investigate the informational constraints that guide performance of individuals and teams in sport. An initial meta-analysis of the effects of expertise on decision-making revealed stronger effects with more homogeneous results in performance contexts and when individuals were allowed to perform sport actions. Based on this conclusion, all of our empirical experiments were developed using a specific sub-phase of competitive futsal games. Analysis of ball passing performance revealed that the decision to pass a ball to a teammate was regulated by spatial constraints through the coupling of interpersonal distance values between players at the moment of pass initiation. Furthermore, the success of the pass was well predicted by a proposed variable defined as Time to Ball Interception. In order to understand how ball dynamics and goal position constrained interpersonal relations between players we also investigated how patterns of interpersonal coordination between players emerged during different sub-phases of the game. It was observed that the ball and the goal represent key performance constraints which shape the emergent patterns of coordination between players and teams. Different coordination dynamics for defenders and attackers were observed, which was consistent with different team objectives In conclusion, all the studies contributed to a better understanding of how individual players or teams adapted their behaviors to the changing conditions of the performance environment, in order to successfully perform.FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologi

Is futsal a donor sport for football?: Exploiting complementarity for early diversification in talent development

Introduction: In team sports like football, athlete development emerges through the continuous experience and practice of varied activities under variations in task and environmental constraints. Such variations in environmental and task constraints provide variable practice opportunities and experiences that promote an enrichment of the learning process through enhanced transfer, and the discovery of individual capabilities through diverse, functional play activities. Objectives: In this commentary, we discuss theoretical insights that suggest how the sport of futsal can provide a useful basis for supporting the transfer of skills to performance in association football. Conclusions: The complementary nature of the two sports can be exploited for skill acquisition in early diversification through emphasising selected performance–based affordances, behavioral correspondence between sports, and self-evident advances towards task goals. By taking up futsal at an early stage, future football players will have the opportunity to explore futsal tactical behaviors that will enrich their developing perceptual-motor landscape. Practial Implications: To ensure a complementary transfer of capabilities between the sports, coaching interventions should highlight informational constraints to improve the coupling of perception and action in players in futsal and association football and promote the utilization of relevant affordances available in practice task designs

Effects of manipulating the number of targets in U9, U11, U15 and U17 futsal players’ tactical behaviour

This study identified how the manipulation in the number of goal targets affects the tactical behaviour of players from different age groups (U9, U11, U15 and U17). Forty youth futsal players performed two small-sided games based on Gk + 4vs4 + Gk situation with one regular and two small targets. TACTO software was used to capture players and ball displacements. The following variables were computed and presented as absolute values, coefficient of variation and regularity (approximate entropy): (i) distance from each player to the team centre (DtC); (ii) distance from each player to the ball (DtB); (iii) distance between team centres (DbTC); and (iv) distance from team centre to the ball (DCtB). The team dispersion increased with two goal targets (mainly the DbTC, U9 and U17, large effects; U11 and U15, very large effects). Also, the use of two goal targets condition increased the variability in the DbTC (U9, small effects; U11 and U15 moderate effects; U17, very large effects) and DCtB (U9 and U17 moderate effects and U11 and U15 small effects). Overall, the approximate entropy values showed higher regularity in the condition with two targets. All age groups were sensitive to the manipulation of goal targets, however, the U9 were the most sensitive to the changes, as seen by the dispersion of players in the field. Thus, coaches can use one target to promote movement irregularity of players and two targets to increase the team dispersion, mainly in younger age groups that tend to be agglomerated around the ball.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Spatial dynamics of team sports exposed by Voronoi diagrams

Team sports represent complex systems: players interact continuously during a game, and exhibit intricate patterns of interaction, which can be identified and investigated at both individual and collective levels. We used Voronoi diagrams to identify and investigate the spatial dynamics of players' behavior in Futsal. Using this tool, we examined 19 plays of a sub-phase of a Futsal game played in a reduced area (20 m(2)) from which we extracted the trajectories of all players. Results obtained from a comparative analysis of player's Voronoi area (dominant region) and nearest teammate distance revealed different patterns of interaction between attackers and defenders, both at the level of individual players and teams. We found that, compared to defenders, larger dominant regions were associated with attackers. Furthermore, these regions were more variable in size among players from the same team but, at the player level, the attackers' dominant regions were more regular than those associated with each of the defenders. These findings support a formal description of the dynamic spatial interaction of the players, at least during the particular sub-phase of Futsal investigated. The adopted approach may be extended to other team behaviors where the actions taken at any instant in time by each of the involved agents are associated with the space they occupy at that particular time

Career Planning in Elite Soccer: The Mediating Role of Self-Efficacy, Career Goals, and Athletic Identity

This study proposed a model to examine the role of self-efficacy, career goals, and athletic identity (AI) on the career planning of elite soccer players. Two hundred and eighty-one elite soccer players (males) participated in this study. Means, SD, and bivariate correlations were calculated for the variables under analysis. The hypothesized effect of self-efficacy, career goals, and AI on career planning was tested using structural equation modeling (SEM). Results supported the adequacy of the proposed model in explaining the career planning. Career planning is positively influenced by the level of self-efficacy of players through the definition of career goals and is negatively influenced by the level of AI. At the same time, the self-efficacy of players through the definition of career goals positively influenced AI. These findings reinforce the important role of self-efficacy and career goals for the development of AI and career planning and at the same time the opposite relationship between AI and career planning. Thus, it is suggested that a balance on AI, maintaining high levels of self-efficacy and career goals, is required to improve the process of career planning and retirementinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

E-Sports: a legitimate sport?

Currently, our society is facing an increase in the levels of physical inactivity in the world population, especially an increase in screen time, causing potential adverse effects in the short and long term to health (Stiglic & Viner, 2019; Domingues‐Montanari, 2017). Several institutions, such as the World Health Organization (WHO), American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), and National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), recognize the importance of physical exercise as a potential tool against the risks associated with sedentary behavior (Piercy et al., 2018). And within that context, a question must be asked; can screen time be considered time spent on sports?(…)info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

How Football Players’ Age Affect Passing Patterns of Play According to Field Location

This study aimed to characterize the passing patterns that support collective tactical behaviour in football players of different ages (U15, U17, and U19) in different field zones. Two hundred and twenty-eight male players, divided into U15, U17, and U19, participated in the study. Cluster analysis was used to group the passes into three sizes (short, medium, and long). The chi-square test was used to analyse the effect of player age on game-passing patterns in each field zone. The results revealed that long and medium passes were used more in areas close to the goals and short passes in the middle area of the field, concerning all ages (p < 0.001). Furthermore, the analysis of the relative distance between the ball carrier and the receiver indicated that older players (U17 and U19) used more distant players to pass the ball in medium and long passes. These results can help coaches design small-sided games according to the players’ ages and adjust to the field’s space and the numerical relationship, thus creating a greater transfer from training to competition.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Coach decision-making in Futsal: from preparation to competition

The purpose of this paper was to analyse expert futsal coaches process of decision-making from preparation to competitive moments. Ten expert and professional coaches’ (M = 46,9 ± 7,93 years old andM= 15,4 ± 7,22 years of coaching experience) from different countries were interviewed using asemi-structured interview (quantitative and qualitative) with two different goals: (1) evaluate the preparation for decision-making moment during the game; (2) classifying the importance of different game related points for decision-making during match moment. The data analysis was processed through combination of deductive and inductive methods through software QSR NVivo 11. The results revealed that coaches’ share similar ideas when preparing their teams. Coaches focus first their attention on their own team identity and frame andsecond on opposition team behaviour and frame. It was also possible to identify clear coaching behavioural signs possible to be structured as cues and guiding lines for their decision-making process and actions before and during competitive moments. Such information can be important for the development of most appropriated coaching education curriculums according to game demands specificities.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Imagery ability in Boccia: Comparison among federate athletes from different medical sport groups

The aim of this study was to analyse and compare movement visualization ability in federate and non-federate Boccia athletes, and among federate Boccia medical sport groups. Forty-two Boccia athletes (Federate N = 24; Non-federate N = 18) at an average age of 35.8 (SD = 11.19) participated in this study. The Portuguese version of Movement Imagery Questionnaire - 3 (MIQ-3), was used for this study. The participants were evaluated on the internal and external visual imagery. Statistics was carried out following the method of interference based on the magnitude of the effects. Results showed a great effect of expertise in imagery ability. The comparison between federate and non-federate Boccia athletes showed a great effect in the Internal Visual subscale and a moderate effect in the External Visual subscale. It was also observed differences between athletes from different medical-sports groups, revealing that the requirements of the sport linked to their action abilities provides them with different Imagery abilities. These results clearly influence the prescription of imagery training programs for different groups taking into account different medical-practice groups.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Speed synchronization, physical workload and match-to-match performance variation of elite football players

work was supported by Project NanoSTIMA: Macro-to-Nano Human Sensing: Towards Integrated Multimodal Health Monitoring and Analytics, NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000016, co-financed by Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional (FEDER) - NORTE 2020.This study aimed to: (i) examine whether the speed synchronization and physical performance of an elite football team changed between the first and the second half, using match time blocks of 15-min, and (ii) explore the match-to-match variation of players' speed synchronization performance. Twenty-eight outfield elite footballers participated in 51 official matches. Positional data were gathered and used to calculate the total distance covered as a physical workload indicator. For all the outfield teammate dyad combinations (45 pairs), it was processed the percentage of time that players' speed was synchronized during walking, jogging and running using relative phase (Hilbert Transform). Also, the match-to-match variation of the players' speed synchronization, expressed in coefficient of variation was computed. The differences in the total distance covered from all players within the different match's time block periods revealed a moderate decrease in the distance covered in the last 15-min of the match compared to the first 15-min (-6.5; ±1.07%, most likely: change in means with 95% confidence limits). However, when compared the last minutes from both halves a small increase was observed (2.7; ±1.2%, likely) from first to second half. The synchronization of the players' speed displacements revealed small to moderate decreases in the % of synchronization in the second half periods for the jogging and running speed, while the opposite was found for the walking speed (~13 to 24% more, most likely). The playing position analysis for the walking zone showed similar trends between the groups, with small to moderate higher values in the second half, with the exception of [30'-45'] vs [75'-90'] in the midfielder's dyads and in [15'-30'] vs [60'-75'] match periods for forwards. Similar trend was found during the running speed, in which small to moderate higher synchronization was found during the first half periods, with the exception of [15'-30'] vs [60'-75'] and [30'-45'] vs [75'-90'] in midfielder's dyads. Regarding to the match-to-match variation of the players' speed synchronization, overall results showed small to moderate increases in coefficient of variation during jogging and running displacements from the beginning to the end of the match (32.1; ±13.2% increase in jogging and 26.2; ±10.5% in running, both comparisons most likely). The higher distance covered during most of the first half periods and the higher dyadic synchronization at high speeds might have limited players' performance in the second half. In addition, the decrease trend in speed synchronization during the second half periods might have resulted from accumulated muscular and mental fatigue towards the match. Within, the match-to-match variation in tactical-related variables increased across the match duration, with especial focus in the midfielder dyads. Dyadic speed synchronization might provide relevant information concerning the individual and collective performance.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio