STUDY OF SEQUENCES OF PASSES BETWEEN PROFESSIONAL SOCCER PLAYER IN HOME MATCHES DURING A SEASON: APPLICABILITY OF SOCIAL NETWORK ANALYSIS MEASURES

Abstract

Filipe M. Clemente, e Fernando M. L. Martins

The aim of this study was to analyse the influence of moment of the season, final score and tactical position on the general and centrality values of attacking network. Seventeen official home matches of a professional football team from Portuguese premier league were observed and codified. A total of 4535 passes made during attacking plays were recorded and processed. The centrality and general variables were computed based on social network analysis and the weighted digraphs theory. No statistical differences were found in the factors of moment of the season (p-value > .05) and final score (p-value > .05). In the other hand, statistical differences on centralities were found between tactical positions (p-value = .001; ��?2 = 0.266; Moderate effect). The results suggest that tactical position may be the most relevant factor to determine the relationship between teammates. Nevertheless, future studies must to categorize the attacking process and to add some observational techniques to measure the tactical behaviour.