16 Jan FSI Football Science Update

 

Greater numbers of passes and shorter possession durations result in increased likelihood of goals in 2010 to 2018 World Cup Champions.

Taha T(1), Ali AY(1).

PLoS One. 2023 Jan 6;18(1):e0280030. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0280030. eCollection 2023

This study analyzed 4465 possessions originating in the defensive zones of the French, German and Spanish Men’s National teams at the 2010 to 2018 World Cups. The odds of a shot decreased by -0.29 with each pass and the odds of a goal decreased with time of possession by 1.000 and increased with number of passes by 0.775. The findings suggest that teams with possessions gained in the defensive zone can use a high number of passes in a short period of time to increase their likelihood of scoring goals.

 

Planning the Microcycle in Elite Football: To Rest or Not to Rest?.

Buchheit M(1)(2)(3), Settembre M(1), Hader K(1), McHugh D(1).

Int J Sports Physiol Perform. 2023 Jan 3:1-7. doi: 10.1123/ijspp.2022-0146

This study of data from 56 team seasons of players belonging to 18 elite teams performing in top leagues from January 2018 to December 2021 (total of 1578 players, 2865 injuries, 2859 noninternational matches, and 12,939 training-session days) found that during 3- and 7-day turnarounds, the microcycle sequences including the day off feet at D + 2 were associated with 2 to 3 times lower overall noncontact injury rates than the other programming sequences.