Some Methodological Perspectives on the Analysis of Team Games

Abstract

The cross-disciplinary perspectives of the physical educator and human geographer are used to illustrate methodological approaches to the analysis of team games. Spatial transformations of player configurations raise questions of two-dimensional, or Euclidean, regression, from which residuals create inter-pretable vector fields. Asymmetries in team play raise questions of the “winds of influence” blowing through appropriate spaces as graphic summaries of team dynamics. The meteorological analogy is explored further as teams create pressure surfaces, or forcing functions, which control the “flow of the game.” Finally, an algebraic topological language of structure is suggested to describe the dynamics of player-polyhedra by defining a relation upon a set of players engaged in a game.