Abstract

ERREKAGORRI, I; CASTELLANO, J  and  ECHEAZARRA, I. Analysis of the ball possession in youth soccer in relation to situational variables: case study. CPD [online]. 2020, vol.20, n.2, pp.128-138.  Epub July 13, 2020. ISSN 1989-5879.

The aim of the present study was to study how the following situational variables affected the ball possession of a youth soccer team from Spain during a competitive season: coach (coach 1, coach 2 and coach 3), quality of opposition (high, medium and low), venue (home and away) and final outcome (win, draw and lose). The 30 league matches played by the reference team were analysed. Different possession performance indicators were used. First, the Kruskal-Wallis test was performed for all variables and conditions. Subsequently, only the Mann-Whitney U test was applied in the statistically significant variables (p <0.05) comparing the differences two by two. The results showed in quality of opposition, that the team was associated with a decrease in the total length of time of possession when faced with opponents from the high zone of the classification unlike when made with opponents from the medium and low zone. The main conclusion from the work was that the possession of the ball played a determining role in the performance of the team, although the quality of opposition conditioned this indicator. Soccer trainers of academies could include ball possession as a performance indicator, if it is identified with the game model, from which to evaluate the team to propose intervention strategies and optimize their performance.

Keywords : Soccer academy; Team sport; Observational Methodology; Performance indicators; Contextual factors.

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