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Most Demanding Passages in Elite Futsal: An Isolated or a Repeat Situation?

Article in Apunts. Educacion Fisica y Deportes · October 2020

DOI: 10.5672/apunts.2014-0983.es.(2020/4).142.10

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EDUCACIÓN FÍSICA Y DEPORTES https://doi.org/10.5672/apunts.2014-0983.es.(2020/4).142.10

80 NÚMERO 142
80

Most Demanding Passages in Elite

SCIENTIFIC NOTES
EDUCACIÓN FÍSICA Y DEPORTES

Futsal: An Isolated or a Repeat Situation?

142

Jordi Illa¹ JI
, , Daniel Fernandez¹ , Joan Ramon Tarragó¹ JC
, & Xavier Reche¹ XR
,
4.º trimestre (octubre-diciembre) 2020

1 Sports Performance Area, Futbol Club Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

ISSN: 2014-0983

Cite this article:

Illa, J., Fernández, D., Tarragó, J.R., & Reche, X. (2020). Most Demanding Passages in Elite Futsal: An
Isolated or a Repeat Situation? Apunts. Educación Física y Deportes, 142, 80-84. https://doi.org/10.5672/
apunts.2014-0983.es.(2020/4).142.10
OPEN ACCESS

Editado por: Abstract

© Generalitat de Catalunya
Departament de la Presidència
The main purpose of this research was to examine not only the most demanding
Institut Nacional d’Educació passages (MDP) of elite futsal matches through different external load variables: total
Física de Catalunya (INEFC) distance covered (TD), distance covered at high-speed running (HSR), metres cov-
ered above 0.02 Player Load (PL), number of high-intensity accelerations (ACC) and
ISSN: 2014-0983
decelerations (DEC); but also to analyse whether they may be repeated in the course
*Correspondencia: of a single match for a single player. Data from one professional futsal player were
Jordi Illa
collected using a local positioning system from a total of twelve official matches of the
[email protected]
1st Division of the Liga Nacional de Futbol Sala (LNFS) during 2018-2019. The rolling
Sección: average method was used for all variables, using a one-minute time window. Data
Scientific Notes were re-analysed to identify the very high demanding passages (VHDPs; >90% of the
Idioma del original:
mean of the three top MDP of all matches) and the high demanding passages (HDPs;
Inglés 80%-90% of the mean of the three top MDP of all matches). The results showed that
the VHDPs and HDPs in a single match did not present as an isolated situation. TD and
Recibido:
ACC were the two most demanding variables in terms of repetition of HDPs and VHDPs.
13 de abril de 2020
Aceptado:
25 de junio de 2020 Keywords: Team sports, high demanding passages, external load, game analysis, UWB.
Publicado:
1 de octubre de 2020

Portada:
Nuevos deportes olímpicos
en Toquio 2020. Escalada.
Foto: Escalada. Juegos
Asiáticos 2018. Finales
combinadas femeninas.
Compite Kim Ja-in de
Corea del Sur.
Escalada líder.
JSC Sport Climbing.
Palembang, Indonesia.
REUTERS / Edgar Su.

Apunts. Educación Física y Deportes | www.revista-apunts.com 2020, n.º 142. 4.º trimestre (octubre-diciembre), pág. 80-84 80
J. Illa, et al Most Demanding Passages in Elite Futsal: An Isolated or a Repeat Situation?

Introduction Method

SCIENTIFIC NOTES
Monitoring players’ exposure to training and compe- A retrospective observational study was conducted
tition loads has become a regular activity in the daily during the 2018-2019 season. Data were collected from
work of sport scientists and strength and conditioning one professional futsal player (age: 26 years, weight:
coaches. Recently, increasingly greater attention has 67.5 kg, height: 171.3 cm) from Futbol Club Barcelona
been paid to the most demanding passages (MDPs) with the ultra-wideband (UWB) local positioning system
of matches in different team sports, with several stu- (WIMU PRO™, RealTrack Systems S.L., Almería) from
dies using different methodologies such as dividing the 12 official matches of the Liga Nacional de Futbol Sala
match into predefined periods of 15 minutes (Carling & (LNFS) 1st Division. The data analysed stemmed from
Dupont, 2011) or 5 minutes (Bradley & Noakes, 2013; daily player monitoring, in which player activities are
Di Mascio & Bradley, 2013) and the rolling average measured routinely in the course of the season. Therefore,
method in different team sport research (Delaney et al., the approval of an ethics committee was not required
2017; Fernández et al., 2020; Malone et al., 2017). An (Lacome et al., 2018), although the study was conducted
MDP of a match could be described as a multifactorial in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and the
phenomenon that occurs within a defined time period, in player provided his informed consent before participating.
which all the conditional and emotional variables are The logging device was located in the upper part of the
more demanding than at any other moment in a game back on a tight-fitting vest. The data collected were anal-
(or training session) (Fernández et al., 2020), and the ysed with computer software (SPRO, RealTrack Systems
rolling average method seemed to be the best method S.L., version 946) and computed by the data computation
for describing these scenarios (Delaney et al., 2017). software RStudio version 1.2.5033 (RStudio, Inc.) for
Hitherto, most of the studies that have addressed Windows version 10 Pro. The WIMU PRO™ sensors are
MDPs have sought to identify only one scenario per equipped with three different inertial sensors: accelerom-
match, without entertaining the possibility of having eter, gyroscope and magnetometer, a GPS (10 Hz sample
2 or more scenarios of the same (or almost the same) frequency) and a UWB (18 Hz sample frequency). The
magnitude. This possibility could be described as the WIMU PRO™ presented both good/acceptable accuracy
repetition of MDPs, or if the values of performance and inter- and intra-unit reliability for UWB positioning
are lower than an MDP, as the repetition of very high (Bastida-Castillo et al., 2019).
demanding passages (VHDPs) and high demanding The rolling average method was used for all variables to
passages (HDPs). Considering futsal as an intermit- determine the MDP of each game. The maximal values for
tent sport in which the combination of high-intensity a one-minute time window were calculated and presented
actions and low-intensity short pauses exposes players for each variable: total distance covered (TD; m·min-1),
to a major amount of high physiological, mechanical distance covered at high-speed running (HSR; >18km·h-1;
and locomotor stress (Dogramaci et al., 2011), the m·min-1), metres covered above 0.02 Player Load (vector
identification and comprehension of the repeatability of magnitude expressed as the square root of the sum of the
VHDPs and HDPs may be of great assistance to sports squared instantaneous rates of change in acceleration in
scientists, strength and conditioning coaches and other each one of the 3 planes divided by 100 in arbitrary units)
technical staff members to have a better understanding (PL; m·min-1), the number of high-intensity accelerations
of the demands of the competition and therefore to better (ACC; >2 m·s-²; n·min-1) and the number of high-intensity
adjust training loads in a quantitative and qualitative decelerations (DEC; >2 m·s-²; n·min-1). Once the MDP
perspective (Sánchez-Ballesta et al., 2019). of each variable and each game had been determined,
Thus, the objectives of this study were (1) to describe the average of the three highest values for each variable
the concept of repetition of VHDPs and HDPs in games was calculated to determine the player’s 100%; and the
by defining the concept of VHDPs and HDPs and (2) definition of the very high demanding passage (VHDP)
to identify how many of these scenarios were present threshold (>90% of the mean of the three top MDP) and
in official games for an elite professional futsal player. the high demanding passage (HDP) threshold (80%-90% of

Apunts. Educación Física y Deportes | www.revista-apunts.com 2020, n.º 142. 4.º trimestre (octubre-diciembre), pág. 80-84 81
J. Illa, et al Most Demanding Passages in Elite Futsal: An Isolated or a Repeat Situation?

Figure 1

SCIENTIFIC NOTES
Schematic representation of data processing in 3 steps: firstly, determination of the MDP of each game; secondly, determination of
the 100% of each variable for the player; finally, re-analysis of the matches to identify the number of the VHDPs and HDPs above the
thresholds.

Note. var = variable

the mean of the three top MDP) was established. Finally, Results
a new computing process was conducted to identify all the Table 1 displays all the mean values and the SD of the
VHDPs and HDPs for a one-minute time window in each number of VHDPs and HDPs for each variable per game.
game for each variable (figure 1). The results showed that TD was the variable with the
The results were expressed as the mean number of greatest number of VHDPs and HDPs in a competitive
VHDPs and HDPs occurring for each variable plus the match; and the range values of the variables showed that
standard deviation (mean ± SD), and the range (minimum there might not be any VHDP or HDP in a match or that
and maximum) of number of scenarios per match observed. there might be several VHDPs and HDPs. Figure 2 shows
No other statistical test was conducted because this was the stochastic distribution among games suggested by the
a one-player case study and there were no differences to results of table 1, with games without any scenario and
evaluate. with games with several scenarios.

Table 1
Mean ± SD and range of the number of HDPs and VHDPs for each variable per match.

Descriptive statistic TD HSR PL ACC DEC

Number HDPs Mean ± SD 3.17 ± 2.32 0.17 ± 0 1.17 ± 1.51 2 ± 1.12 0.83 ± 0.53
per match Range (min – max) 0–9 0–1 0–5 0–5 0–2

Number VHDPs
Mean ± SD 0.75 ± 0.35 0.17 ± 0 0.17 ± 0 0.67 ± 0.55 0.5 ± 0.58
per match

Range (min – max) 0–2 0–1 0–1 0–2 0–2

Note. TD = total distance (m·min-1); HSR = high-speed running (m >18 km·h-1, m·min-1); PL = distance above 0.02PL (m·min-1); ACC =
accelerations (>2 m·s-2, n·min-1); DEC = decelerations (<-2 m·s-2, n·min-1).

Apunts. Educación Física y Deportes | www.revista-apunts.com 2020, n.º 142. 4.º trimestre (octubre-diciembre), pág. 80-84 82
J. Illa, et al Most Demanding Passages in Elite Futsal: An Isolated or a Repeat Situation?

Figure 2

SCIENTIFIC NOTES
Sample of 12 games of the player analysed. Moving average To our knowledge, this is the first research to address
of the TD variable in black. Blue rectangles, the HDPs. Red the concept of the repetition of MDPs, the concept of the
rectangles, the VHDPs. Blue dotted line, the 80% threshold repetition of MDPs and the concept of establishing thres-
of the mean of the three top MDPs. Red dotted line, the 90%
threshold of the mean of the three top MDPs. holds to separate VHDPs from HDPs. It is important to
point out that this last concept could constitute a limitation
of our research, since the lack of previous research led
us to establish an 80% threshold for HDPs and a 90%
threshold for VHDPs on the strength of our experience.
The findings of this research point the way for future
research analysing the repeatability of VHDPs and HDPs
in a match for different professional futsal players and
to analyse whether these scenarios present during their
training sessions. This may help coaches and strength and
conditioning coaches to design, adjust and modify training
drills to optimise performance to meet the high demands
of competition.

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the team and the athlete
who participated in the study. The authors did not report
any potential conflicts of interest. This work was not
supported by a funding source.

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