4 NAl YSS OF SELECTED MATCH ACTO S N THE 994 WORLD CUP SOCCERTOURNA ~ent Njorora w. w. Smyu, Kenyatta Unversty ABSTRACT A soccer match s charactersed by several techncal and tactcal actons. Some of these techncal actons nclude throw-ns, headers, crosses (centres), goal attempts, goals, free kcks, goal kcks, corners, offsde, njures, penaltes and substtutons. However, the frequency of occurrence of these actons s not well known. Ths study, therefore, set out to regster the frequency of occurrence of these actons durng the world cup soccer tournament held n the USA between h June to 7th July 994. A total of 52 matches were transrmtted lve on televson. The matches were watched on televson and the data recorded by an experenced observer. The data was analysed and descrptvely presented. Among other fndngs, t was. establshed that the mean fer each acton was: throw-ns (4.7), headers (73.8), crosses (30.6), free kcks (30), goal atternots (20.2), comers (0.3), goal kcks (9.7), off-sdes (5.9), njures (2.8), goals (2.7), penaltes (.3), cards (4.4), and substtuton (3.5) per match respectvely. Such fndngs are useful to sports scentsts and coaches who are facltated to desgn tranng programmes that can allow for adequate emphass on each of these match actons. Key words: Headers, Ted'>ncal-tactcalactons, crosses NTRODUCTON A soccer match s characterzed by several techncal and tactcal actons. ndeed, the techncal and tactcal aspects form a major part of the areas that a team should concentrate on durng the perod of preparaton for compettons (A, 99; Asembo and Njorora, 995; Ebe, 99; Mal, 982; Njoro,ra, 995; Partrdge, 99 and Sngh, 982). However, gven the dversty of technques and tactcs that ndvdual players and teams employ to outwt opponents durng a compettve match, a systematc observaton and recordng of a match s essental (Njorora, 993). Several studes have been carred out on soccer usng the match analyss method. These nclude studes by Byshovets et. at. (99) on team work; Gersch and Renchelt (99) on stuatonal analyss of player's performance, analyss of physcal actvty, techncal elements and tactcs of teams; Dufour (99), Lanham (99), Mosher and Partrdge as well as Partrdge et at. (99) on the chance factor n offensve moves; Luhtanen (99) on effcency of the actons, whle Al (99) and Yamanaka et at. (~9) studed the playng patterns of teams n attackng play and contnental dfferences respectvely. The above studes only reled on the computer technology to analyse play. However, some soccer playng natons may be handcapped wth regard to the use of computer technology. The computer technology reles on the avalablty of hardware as well as electrcty (Njorora, 993). Most stada n such countres do not have electrcty at all. The economc dffcultes that the countres face make t almost mpossble for the Governments, Football Assocatons and clubs to afford the use of computers n soccer. The coach n parts of Afrca, Asa, central and south Amerca, and ocean must, therefore, contnue relyng on manual methods of match analyss to gauge ther feld performance as well as to establsh the trends of typcal soccer match actons. Ths study, therefore, sought to establsh the frequency of occurrence of each n the US'94 world cup tournament. MATERALS AND METHOD Ffty out of ffty- two matches played durng the US'94 world cup soccer tournament and transmtted "lve" were watched on televson. The tournament lasted between 7th June 994 to h July 994. The data was recorded manually by an experenced observer. The nformaton was recorded on protocol sheets. The varables were recorded for the regulaton perod of 90 mnutes. The collecton of data pertaned to the frequency of occurrence of the followng aspects of the matches: throw- ns, head~rs,. crossest free kcks, goal attempts, corners, goal kcks, off sde, njures, goals, penaltes, ~ubstltutlons, cautons and expulsons. The data collected WaS descrptvely ar.alysed and presented n form of frequences, means, standard devatons, range and a table. "
RESULTS The total, mean, standard devaton, mnmum and maxmum values of the match observatons are shown n table one. Table : Techncal and Tactcal actons n the US' 94 VARABLE ~UMBER! MEAN STANDARD MAXMUM MNMUM! RANGE DEVATON Headers ~9 73.8 23.9 79 3 48 Throw-ns 2086 4.7 9.3 64 20 44 Crosses 529 30.6 7.2 48, 9 29 Free kcks 490 29.8 6.2 4 6,25 Goal attempts 008 20.2 5. 32 2 Goal kcks 983 9.7 5. 39 28 Corners 53 0.3 3. 8 4 4 Off sdes 297 5.9 2.8 4 0 4, Cards* 228 4.4 2.4 0! Substtuton!73 3.5 0.8 4 0 0.4 njures 45 2.8 2. 0.9 0 0.9 Goals* 38 2.70.5 0.7 0 0.7. 5 *52 matches used Penaltes* 0.3-2 0 0.2 As shown n table one, the match actons that occurred most frequently ncluded headers, whch averaged 73.8 per 90 mnutes of a match n the tournament. The other frequently occurrng actons ncluded throw-ns (4.7), crosses (30.6), free kcks (29.8), goal attempts (20.2), and goal kcks (9.7). The other parameters ncludng corners, off sdes, cautons and expulsons, njures, goals, substtutons and penaltes do not occur as frequently as the headers, crosses, throw-ns and goal attempts. However, there s a lot of dversty of occurrence of the varables as reflected n the mnmum and maxmum values. Some of the actons wth the wdest range ncluded the header (48), throw-ns (44), crosses (29); goal kcks (28) and frees kcks (25)., \
b DSCUSSON.: '. '.-., From the match observatons, the hgh -frequency of headers, throw-ns, rree kcks, corners, goal kcks, njures and off sdes ndcate that the ball spends a lotottlme ether~ the~c!ro'n"d~~" stuatons. Regardng the headers, t can be observed that( s ~me of the most usedtechnques,n the game. The hgh rate ofheaders n the game could requre that a team spends a reasonable-porton of the tranng tme perfectng the headng technque (Njorora, 993). Headng of the ball can also be perfected as a tactcal weapon when a team s facng an opp?ne~t t~at. s strong onj~w-b~s,but. weak n hgh balls.,a serous coach should therefore spend t\tlelx.>h~hl,ngthe use of head":q'?s ths technque s both vtal n defense and offenserdata of tnegoals scc?~ n,th~,ltala' 9q world cup '. soccer tournament ndcate that 35 (2)%) goals were scored by'thehead '(F'rFa,994Ywhch reflects the emphass that ths technque should receve n tranng.. ',-.:. "~:".:! :'.~> ~.. ~'~.'-,:',.\:r-...:. :v. ~...;..-".., --' A throw- n s used to put the ball n: play after thas crossed th,esdelne:: ~;'Sl~one tactc that can. be appled n both defenslve and offensve stuatons. Gven the' frequencv of tsapphcatlorr, t..,~ behooves the coach to take tme to polsh the accuracy otthethrow-ms. The frequencyof occurrence: of throw-ns n the 994 world cup whch'averaged 4.7 per game was'hghercompared t6.28.7. " reported for selected matches nvolvng European and East Afrcan teams (Njorora, 993): However, the range between the hghest and the lowest reported frequences were relatvely comparable wth the 994 world cup (44). The range n the 990 world cup was 40 and n the selected European and East Afrcan matches was 35. The hgh number of throw-ns n matches reflects the trend of teams.., gvng away possesson of the ball. Thus the team that gans possesson should ensure' effectve.. utlzaton of the throw-n. Crosses play an mportant offensve role for some teams; n the 994 world cup',.an.averaqe 'of 30.6.. crosses was recorded' per match for the 50 matches that were observed. Ths was comparable to ~.. those reported from the 990 world cup where the average per match was 30.8 (Mosher and':,. Partrdge, 99); The 994 world cup therefore was charactersed by a lot of wng play. ndeed, gven the defensve tactc of funnelng and concentratng n the penalty box (Docherty, 978;, Wnterbottom, 964; Wade, 970) the use of flanks and the crosses are potent weapons n offensve play that should be perfected n tranng. Free kcks are as a result of the nfrngement of the rules of the game. They form a vtal part of the set pece stuatons that account for a reasonable proporton of goals scored n a tournament. For example, set peces (free kcks, throw ns, corners) led to 32.2%,33.3% and 2.8% of the goals scored n tala' 90, US' 94 and Barcelona Olympc soccer tournaments respectvely. Thus practcng and perfectng the executon of the free kcks should receve adequate emphass durng tranng, as ther contrbuton to goal scorng s vtal n matches (Byshovets et. al., 99; Njorora, 995) The object of the game of soccer s to score as many goals as possble and to mnmze concedng them. n the 994 world cup, the 50 matches observed yelded on average 20.2 goal attempts per game. Ths was hgher than 9 reported for European and East Afrcan football. The fact that there was a mnmum of goal attempts n the matches wth fewest attempts s mpressve. t reflects on the success of the 994 world cup that was charactersed by offensve play n the majorty of the" matches. t was because of the offensve nature of play that goals recorded n the 994 world cup also averaged 2.7 per match compared to 2.2 n the 990 world cup. The mproved goal attempts as well as the scorng could be attrbuted to the rule changes made just before the 994 world cup that nvolved tackles from behnd, awardng three ponts for? wn n the prelmnary stage, off sde, pass back to the goal keeper, emphass on the advantage rule, and strct enforcement of rules on unfar an~ tme wastnq (Nepfer, 995). The fact that some of these rules had been tred out at junor level, before effectng them at senor level emphaszes the need 'to plot-any rule changes before actual mplementaton, \ '.
.. Effectve utlsaton of set peces such as corners, goal kcks and penaltes play an mportant role n the outcome of matches. The average occurrence of corners per game (0.3), goal kcks (9.7) and penaltes (0.3) gves a team an advantage of not only possessng the ball but also a chance to ether launch an attack or even score drectly especally wth regard to the penaltes. n. 994 tournament, there were ls.penaltes.awarded and all were converted. The goals from the penalty spot accounted for 0.6 percent ofaugo:lls scored, whlej (5%)were as a result of the comers. Ths reflects the mportance.of these tactcal.stuatons and the need for them to receve adequate emphass n tranng. '., "',.: '. The cautons totalled 228 wth s '~PUls~~S. Ths showed an' ncrement n the dscplnary measures admnstered over the 990 recordof 63 and 6 expulsons respectvely (FFA, 994). The ncreased number ofcautof\sco!:j\qbeafuj~uted to the.strct enforcement.of the rules of the game~. '..," -"..:,'..;,. The other feature of a game such as njures and substtutons are also revealng. Regardng the njures, on average of 2.7 per game were recorded, whch s comparable to 2.4 noted n European and East Afrcan football matches(njorora, 993). However, soccer s a relatvely safe sport. compared to Rugby Football Unon where an average of 8 to 9 njures per game have been recorded (Relly and Hardker, 98; Wekesa et al., 994) and Feld Hockey where 7,93 have been reported (Asembo, 994)... -.'._...'.. CONCLUSON Gven the fndngs above, t was concluded that match observaton and a record of techncal and tactcal parameters mportant nfacltatng a better conceptualzaton of nternatonal soccer. The appredatlonand unde.rstandngof trends n compettve matches s useful to a coach. n devsng. ways of mprovng a team's perfonnancen areas where t s defcent n. The coach, gven such,.. nfonnatory s better placed to plan a tranng programme that s used on the realty of compettvefootball as opposed to theoretcal assumptons and guesswork..... :.-,. REFERENCES. AU, A:' (99 r,.'" AnalysS of 'patterns of play of. an.ntematlqna', soccer team'. Paper presented at" the second world congress.on.: sdenceand football,veldtloven, The Netherlands, May 22'25.... "j -.-:':.;~'. -. Asembo,J: M. (994).'lnjuresobse~durngfeldhockey tournamentsln Kenya, Mecleys. 3, ~2. '.. ' Asembo,], M. and Njorora, W. W. S. (995). Assessment of physcal and functonal capacty of soccer players: A comprehensve revew, Paper presented at the Harare All Afrcan Games Scentfc Congress of the Afrcan Assocaton Health, Physcal Educaton, Recreaton, Sport and Dance, Zmbabwe, 9 th - 3th.. / for ByshovetS, A.;;Gadgler ; G., 'Goo~ M. (99)~ Effectvty'bf,team~<' n m~tchesof the -OlympCfootballtoUmament 988 and, FFA word~tjp ltala'90: 'Computer Atalyss, Paper presented at the second worldcongre5son scence and football, Veldhoven, T:leNetherands, May,22~25::,~.",-, '-.... r, Docherty; T,(978):he AB~'OtsoCCer se~~: Strategy and Tactcs 9d~~.~ndon: B.T. Batsford Umted., "<'" t' ~ -.~. ;,:.,.. Dufour, W.(99). Observaton_Technques of motor behavour. Paper presented at the second world congress on scence and,,..-. ",..' ". football, Veldhoven, Tge Netherlands, May 22-23.., FFA(994)~ FFA world cup USA 994,7 tn June- 7th Julv. Zurch: FFA. Gersch, 'G: and Rechelt, M, (9Q), Computer and Vdeo- Aded Analyss 'of football games.'paper pr~ented,atthe,second world congress 00 scence and football, vetdhoven, The Netherlands, May 22-23:,,;. lanham, N. (99), Fgures do not cease to exst becausethev are not c.ounte<!:.,paperpresented at the second world congress on scence and football, Veld hoven, The Netherands, May 22-23.
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