Towards a new method to analyze the soccer teams tactical behaviour : measuring the effective area of play

Abstract

Recently, new tactical metrics have been developed to increase the match analysis’ potential. Naturally, innovate metrics need some updates in order to improve the utility to the soccer coaches. Thus, this paper aims to update the surface area metric, proposing the effective area of play given some efficacy information’s about team players’ positioning. Furthermore, aim analyzes the effective area of play of each team depending on the state of ball possession and a full match of 7-a-side soccer game in the district final was also analysed. Results showed an inverse correlation between teams’ opposite effective areas of play(rp = -0.681), suggesting the expansion-contraction relationship. Furthermore, was analyzed statistical differences with large effect between the moments with and without ball possession for the team A (F(1; 1506) = 1343.893; p-value ≤ 0.001; η2 = 0.472; Power = 1.000) and B (F(1; 1506) = 968.500; p-value ≤ 0.001; η2 = 0.391; Power = 1.000).