From Optical Tracking to Tactical Performance via Voronoi Diagrams: Team Formation and Players’ Roles Constrain Interpersonal Linkages in High-Level Football
Abstract
:1. Introduction
- Interpersonal linkages among players are expressed by their spatial interactions and are constrained by team formation and players’ roles.
- Players’ spatial dominance could be operationalised by Voronoi diagrams (and related spatial statistics), which could capture differences according to team formations, players’ roles, and ball-possession status.
2. Materials and Methods
2.1. Data Sources
2.2. Data Processing
- For each match, the determination of team formations was performed in two steps:
- Using the STATS Edge Analysis application:
- The match time was divided into six periods of 15 minutes, as suggested by Duarte and colleagues [28]; each period was subdivided in case there was a substitution.
- The average longitudinal and lateral position of each player was computed throughout each time period.
- From these results and following the suggestion of Carling [29] and Bradley and colleagues [30], a panel of experts identified both team formations during each of the match intervals. The panel was composed of five coaches with at least ten years of professional experience at the highest level and holding an UEFA PRO certification.
- Team formation, players’ roles, and ball-possession status were considered crucial to data analysis in this paper; consequently, matches and periods within the matches were grouped and selected according to the following criteria:
- For each match, there was an analysed team and an opponent team. For all matches and time periods, the opponent team was always the same and organised under the same team formation (3-5-2). The analysed team was always a different one, forming two groups of five matches. In one group, the analysed team played mostly in a 4-2-3-1 team formation, and in the other group mostly with a 3-4-1-2 team formations.
- Within each match, only periods in which teams maintained their team formation (4-2-3-1 or 3-4-1-2 for the analysed team and 3-5-2 for the opponent team) were used. All other periods, either where teams played with different formations or where they were not complete (e.g., after a red card), were discarded.
- Match periods were further filtered so that only open plays were considered; i.e., set plays and time gaps without play were discarded. Each open play was subdivided into ball-possession episodes (PEs). Each PE starts at the instant when a team recovers the ball and ends when that team loses control of the ball. According to STATS© reference manual [31], at least two consecutive events were necessary to form a PE. Each PE was classified, given the analysed team’s ball possession status, as in possession or out of possession. The 4-2-3-1 formation comprised 999 possession episodes (499 in possession, 500 out of possession), whilst the 4-2-3-1 formation comprised 1199 possession episodes (601 in possession, 598 out of possession).
- The average value of the Voronoi cell area (VA) during the PE was computed for each player of the analysed team. VAs are computed at each time frame, using the procedures described by Kim [32], considering all the players of both teams.
2.3. Statistical Analysis Methods
3. Results
3.1. Comparing Players’ Voronoi Areas (VA) within the Same Team Formation (TF)
- In possession: RCB–LCB; RCB–RLM; LCB–RLM; RCM –LCM; LCM–CAM; LCM–RCF; CAM–RCF;
- Out of possession: RCB–LCB; RCB–RLM; LCB–RLM; RCM–LCM; RCM–CAM; RCF–CAM; RCF–LCF.
3.2. Comparing Players’ Voronoi Areas (VA) between Different Team Formations (TF)
4. Discussion
5. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
Abbreviations
CLA | Constraints-Led Approach |
EPS | Effective Play Space |
GII | Game Intensity Index |
KS | Kolmogrov-Smirnov |
PE | Possession Episodes |
RSP | Relative Space per Player |
SSCG | Small-Sided and Conditioned Games |
TF | Team Formation |
VA | Voronoi Area |
VD | Voronoi Diagrams |
Note: | Players’ role in 4-2-3-1 and 3-4-1-2 team formations are defined in Table 1. |
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4-2-3-1 | 3-4-1-2 | ||
---|---|---|---|
Tag | Description | Tag | Description |
GK | Goalkeeper | GK | Goalkeeper |
LLB | Left Lateral Back | CCB | Centre Central Back |
LCB | Left Central Back | LCB | Left Central Back |
RCB | Right Central Back | RCB | Right Central Back |
RLB | Right Lateral Back | LLM | Left Lateral Midfielder |
LCM | Left Centre Midfielder | LCM | Left Centre Midfielder |
RCM | Right Centre Midfielder | RCM | Right Centre Midfielder |
LAM | Left Attacking Midfielder | RLM | Right Lateral Midfielder |
CAM | Centre Attacking Midfielder | CAM | Centre Attacking Midfielder |
RAM | Right Attacking Midfielder | LCF | Left Centre Forward |
CF | Centre Forward | RCF | Right Centre Forward |
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Caldeira, N.; Lopes, R.J.; Fernandes, D.; Araujo, D. From Optical Tracking to Tactical Performance via Voronoi Diagrams: Team Formation and Players’ Roles Constrain Interpersonal Linkages in High-Level Football. Sensors 2023, 23, 273. https://doi.org/10.3390/s23010273
Caldeira N, Lopes RJ, Fernandes D, Araujo D. From Optical Tracking to Tactical Performance via Voronoi Diagrams: Team Formation and Players’ Roles Constrain Interpersonal Linkages in High-Level Football. Sensors. 2023; 23(1):273. https://doi.org/10.3390/s23010273
Chicago/Turabian StyleCaldeira, Nelson, Rui J. Lopes, Dinis Fernandes, and Duarte Araujo. 2023. "From Optical Tracking to Tactical Performance via Voronoi Diagrams: Team Formation and Players’ Roles Constrain Interpersonal Linkages in High-Level Football" Sensors 23, no. 1: 273. https://doi.org/10.3390/s23010273
APA StyleCaldeira, N., Lopes, R. J., Fernandes, D., & Araujo, D. (2023). From Optical Tracking to Tactical Performance via Voronoi Diagrams: Team Formation and Players’ Roles Constrain Interpersonal Linkages in High-Level Football. Sensors, 23(1), 273. https://doi.org/10.3390/s23010273