Water Polo Offensive Methods after the 2018 FINA Rules Update.

Sofia Canossa,J Arturo Abraldes,Júlio M Garganta,Corrado Lupo,Ricardo J Fernandes,Luísa Estriga

doi:10.3390/ijerph19052568

Abstract

Water polo is a team sport that has been suffering rule changes aiming for a more attractive game. Our goal was to unveil whether different offensive playing styles or methods were adopted by elite national teams from Eastern Europe and from other world countries after the new rules framework was applied at the 2019 FINA World Championship. Additionally, we questioned whether those rules induced a more dynamic game. A total of 648 offensive sequences from games contested by the top-six ranked national squads were analysed. Descriptive statistics, parametric and nonparametric tests were computed, and the effect size was used. The eastern Europeans were the tallest (t (76) = −4.081; p < 0.001, d = 0.42) and the Hungarians were higher than Italians (p = 0.005, dz = −0.41). Offensive time length differed between teams (H (5) = 30.50, p < 0.001) with Serbia being the fastest (Mdn = 22 s). In successful attacks without extra time, Italy was quicker than Spain (17.5 vs. 25.0 s; p = 0.031, dz = −0.36) scoring 30% of their total goals under 20 s, while Australia up to 24% and Croatia, Hungary and Spain ≤ 16.0%. When power-play occurred, the teams’ pass action was different (H (5) = 15.99, p < 0.007), with Italy performing more passes than counterparts, especially Serbia (Mdn = 13 vs. 9, respectively; p= 0.003, dz = 0.20) and with the exception of Hungary. Through fast play sequences, Italy, Serbia and Australia scored up to 33% of their goals, while Spain, Croatia, and Hungary scored ≤ 15%. The power-play contributed to ≥50% of teams’ goals, except for Spain and Australia (48 and 45%, respectively). Playing styles commonly attributed to Eastern vs. non-Eastern Europeans and other worldwide national teams such as Australia were not confirmed. However, offensive trends were perceived and described for the first time, and some base guidelines were suggested to distinguish the static or positional vs. a more dynamic playing model. Rule changes did not seem to induce the expected effects on game dynamics.

Highlights

As a result of the above-mentioned, this study aims to unveil whether different water polo offensive playing styles or methods exist and to characterise them among national teams from Eastern European and from non-Eastern European and other world countries such as Australia
The main study hypothesis was not confirmed since it was not possible to establish the correspondence of an eventual static vs. dynamic playing style of Eastern European vs. non-Eastern teams as they were initially grouped, meaning that the consensual playing methods commonly known by the community do not currently correspond to specific countries
Serbia seemed to exhibit faster and more dynamic playing procedures than all the other teams and Italy presented dynamic tactical methods and dominant positional playing procedures revealing the longest offensive sequences when the time was extended by the rules

Summary

Introduction

Water polo is one of the pioneer team sports at the Olympic Games but is progressively losing popularity It is still considered a sport in which physical size and brute force are determinants [1,2], with sport experts questioning the game’s evolution after the update of the Fédération Internationale de Natation (FINA) rules aiming for faster and more spectacular game play. This was necessary because water polo has become a mostly vertical zone style game, especially in the frontcourt attack [3,4] and it was shown that most of the players’ motions (69%) occur in a vertical body position, which is one of the reasons to consider that water polo has relatively few actions compared with other team sports [5,6].

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