Morphological variation analysis of the repeatability of soccer offensive schemes

A landmark-based statistical method, morphological variation analysis, for the quantification of the repeatability in the arrangement of body segments during the execution of sport actions has recently been developed. A two-dimensional shape is produced and its morphology is studied. The method was used to measure the within-team variability of the relative positions of players during the execution of offensive schemes in soccer. Two junior soccer teams of different technical abilities (semi-professional vs. amateur), each playing two standardized offensive schemes of different difficulty (easier: throw-in; more difficult: wing attack) were filmed. Each scheme was repeated 25 (semi-professionals) or 10 (amateurs) times. For each repetition, the position of the players in a single significant frame was analysed using morphological variation analysis. The reproducibility of both schemes was higher among the semi-professionals than among the amateurs (two-way analysis of variance, P<0.005). The repeatability of the players' relative positions was related to the difficulty of the scheme and the technical level of the team. Among the amateurs, the throw-in was more reproducible than the wing attack (Student's t-test, P<0.005). The method not only allows the quantification of collective (team) coordination, but also the separation of the influence of individual players.