To date, to our knowledge, no study has focused the analysis of the 1-4-4-2 diamond playing formation.
In this system, during offensive game phases, wide midfielders (WMs) play in a more central position, generating spaces for attacks by wide defenders (WDs). In the Spanish “La Liga”, due to the predominance of possession-based team playing styles, the 1-4-4-2 diamond system has emerged with growing popularity, where the four midfield players are located in a rhombus formation. In the last years, the evolution of tactical systems has increased their dynamism instead of their inflexibility. The change of team formations is one of the most efficient instruments for coaches to change and control the players´ behavior and thus directly influence game performance. Moreover, it seems complicated to refute the impact of the tactical playing formation on team performance. Physical performance could have an impact on the technical aspects and the tactical role. Nevertheless, most of the studies have used a traditional analytic approach, without taking into account the relationship between physical outcomes and technical-tactical actions. However, the technical-tactical nature of soccer has shown the physical demands are multifactorial and these demands on players change according to the specific player position and the related tasks on the field, the playing formation, scoreboard dynamics, playing home or away, players’ level, playing style, match momentum, 1st or 2nd half, age and maturity state, gender or the course the season.
Players switch between short multidirectional efforts of high intensity and longer periods of low intensity activity. Īctivity profiles and physiological demands in soccer are intermittent by nature.
#Tactical soccer definition professional
Therefore, the semiautomatic recording techniques through multiple video camera systems most used by the major soccer leagues have been the Amisco ®(Athletic, Nice, France) of France the ProZone ® (Prozone Sports, Leeds, England) from England since 2011, the Mediacoach system ®(Mediapro, Madrid, Spain) in the Spanish Professional Football League (Liga de Fútbol Profesional, LaLiga™) and Wyscout (Chiavari, Italy) that manages the data of the most important European leagues: Ligue 1 (France), Bundesliga (Germany), SeriaA (Italy), Premier League (England), Eredivisie (Holland ) and Primeira Liga (Portugal). Moreover, semi-automatic recording techniques through multi-video cameras have been used to measure and monitor the physical demands of the players, and also different technical-tactical outcomes, as individual players and as a team. Aspects of players’ performance including speed, distances covered, as well as the numbers of accelerations and decelerations during training sessions and games has been analyzed. In the context of training and competition, global positioning system (GPS) data has been applied in order to measure, monitor and evaluate external load. The findings suggest coaches prescribe specific training programs based on the influence of the playing formation and playing position on the physical demands and technical-tactical actions encountered by players during official match-play.Ī number of techniques have been used to establish the physical profile of soccer players and the great technological advance allows an increasingly detailed analysis of physical activity, sports tactics and technique. Regarding the technical-tactical actions, they showed differences between the playing positions of the two playing formations. Likewise, forwards (FW) and central midfielders (CM) registered higher physical demands playing with the 1-4-2-3-1 compared to the 1-4-4-2 formation. The results showed that the 1-4-2-3-1 playing formation demanded decelerations between 2–4 m Also, the technical-tactical variables were recorded. The physical demands were collected as total distance (TD), distance covered in different speed thresholds, and number of accelerations and decelerations. Players were classified according to their playing position: central defenders (CD), wide defenders (WD), central midfielders (CM), wide midfielders (WM), offensive midfielders (OM) and forwards (FW). Twenty-three professional male soccer players who played 31 official matches participated in this study. The aim of this study was to examine the differences in the physical demands and technical-tactical actions encountered by soccer players between two playing formations (1-4-2-3-1 and 1-4-4-2) for each playing position.