Footballers’ movement behaviour during 2-, 3-, 4- and 5-a-side small-sided games

Abstract

The aim of this study was to compare footballers’ movement behaviour during 2-, 3-, 4- and 5-a-side small-sided games. Ten young professional players (age = 18.0 ± 0.67 years) participated in 3 bouts of each small-sided games for 6 min with 1 min of active rest between bouts. Positional data were collected using GPS system units and used to calculate the following variables: team centroid, distance between each player and own and opponent team centroids and distance between centroids. Approximate entropy was used to identify the time series regularity for each variable. The distance to own team centroid increased with the number of players (effect sizes from moderate to perfect). The results from the distance to the opponent’s centroid exhibited a similar trend. The distance between centroids decreased from 2- to the 4-a-side, but then increased in 5-a-side. A higher number of players were associated with lower approximate entropy values, suggesting higher positional organisation in small-sided games with more players. The highest movement regularity found in 4- and 5-a-side identified these formats as more adequate to promote team-related emergent and self-organised behaviours.

Keywords:

• complex systems
• dynamical systems
• GPS
• team behaviours
• approximate entropy

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) [PTDC/DES/098693/2008] for the project: “Evaluating training and competition in team sports. Aggregating tactical analysis, external and internal workload” and PEst-OE/AGR/UI0681/2014 for CERNAS.