Gudberg K. Jonsson, Sigridur H. Bjarkadottir, Baldvin Gislason, Andrew Borrie et Magnus S. Magnusson
44
Discussion
The number, frequency and complexity of detected patterns indicates that
the behaviour of football players is more synchronized than the human eye
can detect. This synchrony was found to exist on different levels, with highly
complex time structures that extended over considerable time spans, often in
a cyclical fashion, as well as less complex patterns with a shorter time span.
S yn ch ro n y o f th is k in d w a s fo u nd to co rr ela te hi gh ly wi th a ss e ss me nt o f
perfo rma nce. A stron ger correla tio n was also disc ove re d between pe rfor-
mance assessments of professional coaches and team pattern participation
than between assessments of amateurs and team participation in patterns.
National matches were found to be more structured than club matches.
The results show that pattern analysis can be used to track elements in the
game such as timing of events, the passing of the ball, team structure etc. in
a novel way, indicating that pattern analysis is useful in enhancing existing
methods used in football analysis. New kinds of profiles, for both individuals
and te ams, c an be d is cove red us in g the de tected b eha vioura l patte rns in
combination with elementary statistics. Moreover, some answers are already
suggested to questions, such as: Are there certain patterns that are related
to doing well or bad? What responses seem to be evoked by certain actions
or se que nc es of ac tion s? Coac he s cou ld use th is kind o f struc tura l inf or-
mation when selecting players or when searching for the opponent’s "weak
spots".
The preliminary data highlights the potential for T-pattern analysis to make
a significant contribution to sport performance a nalysis. Current analytical
methods that focus on simple frequency analysis cannot identify the temporal
pa tte rn s with in a s p or ts p e rfo rma n c e. Co n se q u en tl y wit ho u t th is fo rm o f
analysis meaningful information is not being made available to the coach. If
this information is not available then it possible that performance is not being
optimized.
T h e d a ta a ls o p o in t t o w a rd s th e n e e d t o in v e s t ig a t e th e p o te n t ia l li n k
between temporal structure in sport performance and the understanding of
performance being generated by coach observations. The data suggest that
whilst coaches may not be able to accurately recall discrete events they do
pe rce ive inte r-re la tion sh ips be twee n e ve nts. This a na lys is a pp roa ch ca n
a s s i s t i n g e n e r a t i n g a g r e a t e r u n d e r s t a n d i n g o f c o a c h k n o w l e d g e
construction.
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