Networks metrics and ball possession in professional football

Abstract

This study aimed to verify the network of interactions resulting from the collective behavior of professional football teams and the influence of ball possession. A dataset of 30 matches of one highly successful team from the Portuguese Premier League, season 2010/2011, was considered. From these 30 matches, 13,958 passes (e.g., 11,127 successfully passes and 2831 unsuccessfully passes) and 7583 collective offensive actions were analysed. The data were analysed using Node XL Template that allows to characterize networks and team activity profiles. The results showed that football players' interactions tended to occur, preferentially, during the offensive phase, wherein the network of contacts was mainly organised in the central and lateral areas of the field. We concluded that the ball possession during a football match endows the team with a larger domain in terms of game actions. Moreover, the results of this study also allow concluding that the ball possession does not significantly influence the final outcome of the game. This study has practical implications for coaches, since it provides a multidimensional analysis of the football match (e.g., networks and ball possession) and offers relevant insights on how creative and organizing individuals might act to orchestrate team strategies. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Complexity 21: 342–354, 2016