- Title
- Contextualising physical performance in association football matches: traditional GPS measures, tactical actions and tactical spatiotemporal measures
- Creator
- Hands, Darryl Elliot
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2024
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- This thesis aimed to provide context to association football physical performance data by considering a range of factors that may influence players' physical output during matches. The thesis starts with the contextual factor of match location and travel modality, the latter an under-reported context, especially given the large range of travel modalities for Australian A-League teams. Results showed that considering road travel and short/long duration flights may be more informative than grouping such fixtures as away matches, with significant differences between travel modalities observed for physical performance variables. This thesis then considered within-game context, as it was postulated this might have a greater effect on physical performance. To explore within-game context, a phases of play framework was developed, and the reliability confirmed. This framework consisted of ‘build-up play’, ‘counter-attack’, ‘defensive block’, ‘counter-defending’, and ‘other’ phases of play. Comparisons between phases of play were made for discrete high-intensity effort distances and frequency, with results showing that both variables were significantly greater during ‘counter-attack’ and ‘counter-defending’ phases of play. Examining the high-intensity actions performed by players, results highlighted important actions for each of the phases of play. The ‘run with ball’ and ‘move to receive/exploit space’ actions contributed the most during ‘build-up play’, ‘run with ball’ for ‘counter-attack’, and ‘close down/press’ for both ‘defensive block’ and ‘counter-defending’. Significant differences in the contribution of actions between the different types of in-possession and out-of-possession phases were also revealed. The final study compares the team's collective and individual tactical performance between the phases of play, using spatiotemporal measures from complexity science; with results suggesting the team expanded during attacking phases but did not necessarily contract during defensive phases, and individual exploration was lowest during the ‘defensive block’ phases. This perspective on tactical performance is then discussed as potentially an underlying modulator of physical performance. Finally, the utility of the findings from the thesis are discussed, particularly in relation to contextualising physical performance and the phases of play concept.
- Subject
- physical performance; contextual factors; performance analysis; match analysis; football; soccer
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1512434
- Identifier
- uon:56616
- Rights
- Copyright 2024 Darryl Elliot Hands
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT01 | Thesis | 934 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download | ||
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT02 | Abstract | 218 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |