Instructional feedback effects on youth football players behavior during small-sided games

• Main Author: Folgado, Hugo
• Publication Date: 2020
• Other Authors: Pereira, Paulo, Pacheco, Diogo, Malta, João, Paixão, Paulo, Bravo, Jorge
• Language: eng
• Source: Repositórios Científicos de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (RCAAP)
• Download full: https://repositorio.ipbeja.pt/handle/20.500.12207/6387
• topic: Association football; Youth football; GPS; Performance analysis; Multidimensional performance indicators

Objective: The aim of this study was to explore how different instructional feedback information, provided by a coach during a football small sided game (SSG) situation, influenced young players behavior during practice. Methods: Three different SSG, played in a 30x40m pitch for 6 minutes each with 5 players-a-side, including goalkeepers, were promoted during a U13 football teams’ practice. The 3 instructional conditions, played randomly in every practice were: no instruction, where a coach was present, but no instruction was provided to players; passing instruction, where the coach encourage players to pass the ball; shooting instruction, where the coach asked to players to shot at the goal. Players’ displacement was captured by individual GPS units and a video notational system was used to capture players’ technical actions – passes, dribbles, shots. By merging both sources of information, the spatiotemporal information of the technical actions was computed. Results: With generally small effects, results showed a trend for a higher number of actions in both the passing and shooting instruction conditions, compared to the no instruction. Players shot more, closer to the goal and within a closer range of the opponents in the shooting condition. In the passing condition players passed more overall and more forward passes. Conclusions: Results indicate an influence of coaches’ instructions over players behavior during SSG practice. These instructions seem to demote players from an exploratory behavior during practice.