Classification and determinants of passing difficulty in soccer: a multivariate approach

ABSTRACT

Introduction

Usually, the players’ or teams’ efficiency to perform passes is measured in terms of accuracy. The degree of difficulty of this action has been overlooked in the literature.

Objectives

The present study aimed to classify the degree of passing difficulty in soccer matches and to identify and to discuss the variables that most explain the passing difficulty using spatiotemporal data.

Results

The data used corresponds to 2,856 passes and 32 independent variables. The Fisher Discriminant Analysis presented 72.0% of the original grouped cases classified correctly. The passes analyzed were classified as low (56.5%), medium (22.6%), and high difficulty (20.9%), and we identified 16 variables that best explain the degree of passing difficulty related to the passing receiver, ball trajectory, pitch position and passing player.

Conclusions

The merit and ability of the player to perform passes with high difficulty should be valued and can be used to rank the best players and teams.In addition, the highlighted variables should be looked carefully by coaches when analyzing profiles, strengths and weaknesses of players and teams, and talent identification context.

Practical Implications

The values found for each variable can be used as a reference for planning training, such as small side games, and in future research.

KEYWORDS:

• Passing
• passing difficulty
• tactical-technical
• multivariate analysis
• soccer

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) under Grants [#2016/50250-1, #2017/20945-0, #2018/19007-9 and #2019/16253-1]; Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - Brazil (CAPES), Finance Code 001”.