Abstract
The aim of this study was to analyze the variability of time-motion variables during five vs. five games when completed within the same session as, and between, two different sessions. Ten under-19 male soccer players (18.27 ± 0.47 years old) participated in this study. The five vs. five matches (3 × 5 min) were played twice with a 3-day interval of rest in the same week. Moderate between-session variations were observed for TD (total distance) (range coefficient of variation (CV), 6.9; 8.3%, confidence interval (CI), (5.0; 14.0), standardized typical error (STE), 0.68; 1.06, (0.64; 1.75)) and RD (running distance) (range CV, 53.3; 145.7%, (36.6; 338.9), STE, 0.83; 1.09, (0.60; 1.76)). PL (player load) showed small variations (range CV, 4.9; 6.0%, [3.6; 10.1], STE, 0.37; 0.43, (0.27; 0.71)). In within-session analyses for examining the differences between sets, a small decrease was observed in RD in set 3 versus set 2 (−14.8%, 90% CI (−32.1; 6.9%); standardized difference (ES): −0.39 (0.95; 0.16)). TD decreased with moderate (−3.5%, (−6.8; −0.1%); ES: −0.65(−1.30; −0.01)) and large (−8.2%, (−11.4; −4.9%); ES: −1.58(−2.24; −0.92)) effects in sets 2 and 3, respectively, versus set 1. Our results suggest that PL is the most stable performance variable. It was also verified that measures had a progressive decreasing tendency within a session.
Highlights
Small-sided games (SSGs) are popular training drills that aim to reproduce the physiological, physical, and technical/tactical demands of an official soccer match [1,2,3]
Moderate between-session variations were observed for TD (range Coefficient of variation (CV), 6.9; 8.3%, Confidence interval (CI), (5.0; 14.0), standardized typical error (STE), 0.68; 1.06, (0.64; 1.75)) and RD (range coefficient of variation (CV), 53.3; 145.7%, (36.6; 338.9), standardized units (STE), 0.83; 1.09, (0.60; 1.76)) for all three sets and their accumulated values (Table 1)
Our results suggest that player load is the most reproducible variable on five vs. five between sessions, probably because player load is highly associated with total distance and not with variations in running speed [34]
Summary
Small-sided games (SSGs) are popular training drills that aim to reproduce the physiological, physical, and technical/tactical demands of an official soccer match [1,2,3]. SSGs are played within smaller dimensions and with fewer players than official games. SSGs often use adjusted rules (e.g., differently sized goals, limitations on ball touches and ball possession, etc.) to modify the game for a specific purpose [4,5]. Based on the different formats (numbers of players) used by coaches, sided games can be categorized in extreme SSGs (one vs one to two vs two), SSGs (three vs three to four vs four), medium-sided games (MSGs) (five vs five to eight vs eight) and large-sided games (LSGs) (nine vs nine to eleven vs eleven) [6]. Public Health 2019, 16, 3612; doi:10.3390/ijerph16193612 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
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