Soccer analytics: successful coaching through match analysis PDF

This book explores the analysis of soccer and uses the results of this analysis to develop realistic and progressive practices that will improve the performance of both the player and the team.

An historical perspective of past research is maintained when describing the logical and systematic methods used to notate the game.

Analysis of the coaching practice itself is also considered whereby the behaviours of the coach are scrutinized and evaluated.

Research from human decision making and motor skill acquisition is directly applied to the coaching process and therefore technical and tactical practices are designed to accommodate these findings.

It is expected that this book will provide the reader with an understanding of how to develop their own coaching practice and improve their coaching style with the aid of match analysis.

A comprehensive bibliography is provided for students of the game who wish to delve further into the science of soccer analysis and soccer skill acquisition.

This book is intended to be informative for all levels of coaches, from the recreational novice who has the responsibility to develop young players to the experienced coach of senior players.

Part 1 provides a window into the notional analysis of soccer.

It logically explains how one might develop a system of analysis and then gives a brief summary of the results from analysis.

Special attention is paid to the studies that have provided information on set pieces and crosses.

Part 2 illustrates how decision making is a critical process in soccer and provides a unique method of using this to advantage when coaching.

For example, defending is broken down into a series of decisions all players on the team should be involved in no matter what their position.

In part 3 we emphasize the need to have progressive realistic practices that maximize transfer of training from the practice field to the match.

Several examples of functional training are given along with progressive practices that move from an isolated technique in a specific area of the pitch to a full phase of match play.

In addition, combined attacking techniques are coached in realistic situation-specific practices and then they are progressed back into small-sided games.

Part 4 provides the coach of developing young players with a brief summary of research findings and recommendations into the acquisition of motor skills as they pertain to teaching and coaching soccer skills.

Then practices that adhere to these recommendations are described for several techniques.

In part 5 we briefly introduce some guidelines for warming up players before training and games.

Several practices are then described that could be used to begin the coaching session with an emphasis on game-related activity.

This section also describes several fun conditioning games that can be used to end the coaching session. Part 6 defines the entire coaching process and illustrates how match analysis fits into the overall scheme of this process.

Furthermore this section gives the coach some guidelines as to the preparation, organization and execution of a successful practice session.

Within this framework of the coaching practice we emphasize the need for coaches to engage in self-reflective practice.

Coaches must gather feedback on their own coaching behaviours in order to improve the delivery of information they provide players.

In order to maintain an easy reading experience for the coach we have chosen not to follow the regular convention of citing references within the body of the text.

However, in part 7, we do provide an extended bibliography of classic studies and recent research that directly relate to research used in writing this text.

This section will aid the student of soccer to begin a more rigorous and detailed investigation into various aspects of soccer analysis and soccer skill acquisition.