Notational Analysis Research Articles

Game Insight Skills as a Predictor of Talent for Youth Soccer Players

Perceptual–cognitive skills are found to be important factors for soccer players. The aim of this study was, therefore, to find within-group differences for game insight in an elite group of youth soccer players by means of a Game Insight inDicator (GID). In addition, the prospective value of perceptual–cognitive skills was examined by following the trajectory of the participants. The GID consisted of film clips that show game situations. The task of the players was to predict the trajectory and destination of the ball and move toward the correct position to receive the pass of a teammate. The film clips stopped 80 ms before, at, and 80 ms after the football contact of a teammate. We also sought to validate the GID against game performance. Participants were talented soccer players 11–13 years old and playing at the elite level for their age. Based on eight independent elite-coach judgments, two groups were created: highly talented players (HT) and less talented players (LT). The coach ratings were supported by a significant difference between the two groups based on the objective notational analysis of their game performance in 4 vs. 4 and 11 vs. 11 matches. With respect to the GID, a significant interaction effect for the groups (HT vs. LT) by occlusion time (−80, 0, and +80 ms) was found, showing that the HT performs better than the LT in 0 and +80 ms condition. In addition, GID scores were compared with soccer levels at the mean age of 19 years. Longitudinal data did not show significant differences between elite and sub-elite. Overall, the GID was found to be a valid and useful indicator for players anticipating the ball's trajectory and destination at age 11–13 years but failed to predict the players' level at age 19 years. The latter indicates how difficult it is to predict talent development.

Notational analysis in female grand slam tennis competitions

Grand Slam tennis tournaments are played on different surfaces. The aims of the present study were to analyse the technical differences in the Grand Slam tournaments (Australian Open or AO, Roland Garros or RG, Wimbledon or W, and the United States Open or US), as well as to establish differences between winning and losing players. A total of 580 sets in 248 matches played in Grand Slams between 2017 and 2018 were analysed. To observe differences between the tournaments, a one-way analysis of variance (Kruskal Wallis) with the Bonferroni post-hoc test was performed. Univariate (Wilcoxon test) analysis of data was carried out to show the differences between the winning and losing performances of sets. Players who had more aces, points won on the 1st serve, winning shots and net points won more matches in the AO, W and US than in the RG (p<.05). However, in RG, players won more receiving points (43.56% of the points played) with chances to break the opponents’ service game. The results also showed that the winning players were superior in both service and receiving, and the most influential variables on the outcome of the match were percentage of receiving points won, break points won, and percentage of points won on the first serve. Such knowledge may have implications in the design of appropriate game strategies and specific training sessions to improve performance in professional women’s tennis.

Footwork technique used in elite table tennis matches

Notational and Match analysis are very well-recognized methods to collect information about the most common technical-tactical performance indicators in table tennis: footwork and stroke types. The aim of this study was to compare footwork distributions in men (M) and women (W) elite table tennis competitions. Nine men’s and nine women’s matches were analyzed. All players were in the top 120 (M) and 111 (W) positions of the ITTF world ranking. An expert coach analyzed game video recordings in slow motion with the software Kinovea and collected data about the footwork types used by the players during the games. The results showed differences between M and W: M prefer to use one step (35.6%, W: 21.9%), W prefer to hit the ball without performing any step (W: 40.2%, M: 20.4%), the chasse is equally used (M: 19.7%, W: 21.7%), and the crossover is mainly used by M (11.1%, W: 3.7%). The pivot is mainly used by M (9.9%, W: 7.8%), and W prefer the slide (4.9%, M: 3.2%). In conclusion, this study can be useful for physical trainers, performance analysts, and coaches, to design specific footwork training sessions for M and W elite table tennis players.

Notational analysis of beach handball

PurposeOne factor affecting successful performance in beach handball is the efficiency of shootings. As only few studies evaluated gender-related differences in shooting performance, the aim of this study was to analyse variations of shooting efficiency between males (M) and females (F) during beach handball matches.MethodsNine matches were analysed. Overall, there were 559 (M: 353; F: 206) shots, of which 54.7 ± 9.4% were successful and 19.9 ± 7.1% were goalkeepers’ saves. Type of shot, shooting area, and goal area were recorded. Percentages of differences between genders were also computed. Players’ efficiency was calculated as (frequency of goals*100)/frequency of shots. Goalkeepers’ efficiency was calculated as (frequency of goalkeepers’ saves*100)/frequency of shots. Gender differences were ascertained by Pearson’s chi-squared test for independence with Bonferroni corrections. Statistical significance of the results was accepted at <i>p</i> < 0.05.ResultsNo statistically significant gender differences were found for any parameter. Goalkeepers were most efficient (M: 23.0 ± 6.1%; F: 25.9 ± 18.0%) when receiving inflight shots. The most frequent shooting area was the front (M: 328 shots; F: 194 shots) and most shots reached lower corners of the goal (M: 139 shots; F: 77 shots).ConclusionsNo differences between genders were found during semifinal and final phases of the tournament. Notational analysis proved to be a valuable tool for better coaching through the interpretation of shots in beach handball and it may be useful to examine all the aspects related to shooting, such as the shooting area and the goal area.

What Is the Relevance in the Passing Action between the Passer and the Receiver in Soccer? Study of Elite Soccer in La Liga.

Soccer is a high-complexity sport in which 22 players interact simultaneously in a common space. The ball-holder interacts with their teammates by passing actions, establishing a unique communication among them in the development of the game in its offensive phase. The main aim of the present study was to analyze the pass action according to the trajectory of the ball receiver and the space for receiving the ball in terms of success at the end of play. Twenty La Liga 2018/2019 matches of two elite teams were analyzed. A system of notational analysis was used to create 11 categories based on context, timing and pass analysis. The data were analyzed using chi-squared analysis. The results showed that the main performance indicators were the efficiency of the pass, the zone of the field, the trajectory of the receiver and the reception space of the ball, which presented a moderate association with the end of play (p < 0.001). We concluded that receiving the ball on approach and in separation increased the probability of success by 5% and 7%, respectively, and a diagonal run increased the probability by 7%. Moreover, the combined analysis of these variables would improve the team performance.

An Evaluation of Wearable Inertial Sensor Configuration and Supervised Machine Learning Models for Automatic Punch Classification in Boxing

Machine learning is a powerful tool for data classification and has been used to classify movement data recorded by wearable inertial sensors in general living and sports. Inertial sensors can provide valuable biofeedback in combat sports such as boxing; however, the use of such technology has not had a global uptake. If simple inertial sensor configurations can be used to automatically classify strike type, then cumbersome tasks such as video labelling can be bypassed and the foundation for automated workload monitoring of combat sport athletes is set. This investigation evaluates the classification performance of six different supervised machine learning models (tuned and untuned) when using two simple inertial sensor configurations (configuration 1—inertial sensor worn on both wrists; configuration 2—inertial sensor worn on both wrists and third thoracic vertebrae [T3]). When trained on one athlete, strike prediction accuracy was good using both configurations (sensor configuration 1 mean overall accuracy: 0.90 ± 0.12; sensor configuration 2 mean overall accuracy: 0.87 ± 0.09). There was no significant statistical difference in prediction accuracy between both configurations and tuned and untuned models (p &gt; 0.05). Moreover, there was no significant statistical difference in computational training time for tuned and untuned models (p &gt; 0.05). For sensor configuration 1, a support vector machine (SVM) model with a Gaussian rbf kernel performed the best (accuracy = 0.96), for sensor configuration 2, a multi-layered perceptron neural network (MLP-NN) model performed the best (accuracy = 0.98). Wearable inertial sensors can be used to accurately classify strike-type in boxing pad work, this means that cumbersome tasks such as video and notational analysis can be bypassed. Additionally, automated workload and performance monitoring of athletes throughout training camp is possible. Future investigations will evaluate the performance of this algorithm on a greater sample size and test the influence of impact window-size on prediction accuracy. Additionally, supervised machine learning models should be trained on data collected during sparring to see if high accuracy holds in a competition setting. This can help move closer towards automatic scoring in boxing.

The effects of the goalkeeper substitution rule as a new strategy in handball: Analysis of Men's European Handball Championship 2020

Background: The numerical inferiority in attacking due to the 2-min penalty is a disadvantageous situation in handball. Teams substitute the goalkeeper with a field player to tolerate this handicap. The rule change enabled the simple practicality of playing with an extra player and an empty net. Objective: The aim of this study is to analyze the effects of intervention on the additional field player strategy in elite national teams. Methods: A total of sixty-two handball matches that were played in the Men's European Handball Championship 2020 were analyzed in this study. We executed a notation analysis on in-game special periods such as the replacement of the goalkeeper with an additional field player. Eight different variables included in the analysis were goals, penalty or suspension, missed shots, technical error, received goals with an empty net, missed shots with an empty net, conceded fast-break goals and substitution failures. Results: The winning and losing teams' analysis revealed that there was a significant increase in missed shots, technical error, received goals with an empty net and received fast-break goals in the losing teams. In the comparison of the numerical asymmetry situations (5&6 and 7&6 with an additional field player), all parameters were significantly higher in the 5&6 situations than the 7&6 situations except for substitution failure. Conclusions: This study suggests that playing with an additional field player could provide an opportunity for advantageous attacking in the critical moments of the game and make handball a more attractive team sport in the future.

Analysis of goal scoring opportunities in elite male ice hockey in relation to tactical and contextual variables

ABSTRACT We sought to examine whether goal scoring opportunities (GSO) in elite ice hockey was affected by tactical and contextual variables. An ice hockey specific notational match analysis instrument was applied to collect 4886 GSO from 192 competitive games in the top Swedish tier. Data were collected from one elite male team and its opponents during three consecutive competitive seasons. All GSO were categorised in tactical and contextual variables. In total, 13.2% (644) of all GSO (4886) resulted in a goal. Two logistic regressions were conducted to examine the impact of tactical and contextual variables on the outcome of GSO. The multivariate analysis demonstrated higher probability to score when shooting from an area close to the goal (OR [95%CI]=.54 [.42-.69]; p <.01). Additionally, differences in numbers of involved players in specific positions, both forwards and defenders affected the probability to score a goal (p <.05) and that the probability to score from a GSO was higher in second (OR [95%CI]=1.35 [1.02-1.79]; p<.05) and third (OR [95%CI]: 1.38 [1.04-1.83], p <.05) compared to first game-period. Summarised, the study provides an insight of how goal scoring is impacted by several tactical and contextual variables.

The validity of small-sided games in predicting 11-vs-11 soccer game performance.

Predicting performance in soccer games has been a major focus within talent identification and development. Past research has mainly used performance levels, such as elite vs. non-elite players, as the performance to predict (i.e. the criterion). Moreover, these studies have mainly focused on isolated performance attributes as predictors of soccer performance levels. However, there has been an increasing interest in finer grained criterion measures of soccer performance, as well as representative assessments at the level of performance predictors. In this study, we first determined the degree to which 7-vs-7 small-sided games can be considered as representative of 11-vs-11 games. Second, we assessed the validity of individual players' small-sided game performance in predicting their 11-vs-11 game performance on a continuous scale. Moreover, we explored the predictive validity for 11-vs-11 game performance of several physiological and motor tests in isolation. Sixty-three elite youth players of a professional soccer academy participated in 11 to 17 small-sided games and six 11-vs-11 soccer games. In-game performance indicators were assessed through notational analysis and combined into an overall offensive and defensive performance measure, based on their relationship with game success. Physiological and motor abilities were assessed using a sprint, endurance, and agility test. Results showed that the small-sided games were faster paced, but representative of 11-vs-11 games, with the exception of aerial duels. Furthermore, individual small-sided game performance yielded moderate predictive validities with 11-vs-11 game performance. In contrast, the physiological and motor tests yielded small to trivial relations with game performance. Altogether, this study provides novel insights into the application of representative soccer assessments and the use of continuous criterion measures of soccer performance.

A systematic and comparative study on the line-changing strategies in top-level table tennis players

ABSTRACT Line-changing strategies are key tactics that can contribute to the successful performance of table tennis players. The purposes of this study were to explore the characters and development trend of line-changing tactics in top-level table tennis players and compare the differences of line-changing tactics between Chinese players and players from other countries. A computerised notational analysis was performed by using the specialised technical and tactical video analysis system of “Ping Pong Military Division” with 80 table tennis matches played by 24 right-hand male top-ranked players as samples and chose the usage rate, scoring rate and contribution rate as the evaluation parameters of different line-changing tactics. The results showed that (1) the line-changing strategies were more widely used in the new plastic ball era, and the tactic of changing the line to forehand position and changing the line from crosscourt to crosscourt tactics increased significantly; (2) Chinese players had outstanding scoring skills in line-changing strategies, not only for the consciousness but also for the scoring ability. These findings indicated that stroke placement and stroke line are playing an increasingly important role in table tennis, which may inform coaches and players for taking corresponding countermeasures.

Does game pressure affect hand selection of NBA basketball players?

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to compare hand selection and accuracy of technical skills between low- and high-pressure games of the National Basketball Association (NBA) in the 2018–2019 regular season and playoffs. MethodA notational analysis was conducted on 24 games of four teams (12 low-pressure games and 12 high-pressure games, six of each team, three in each condition). One- or two-handed actions were recorded for dribbling, passing, catching, and shooting (layups, dunks, hooks, and tips) skills. ResultsDuring high-pressure games, players significantly increased the frequency of right-handed passing. High-pressure games also increased the frequency of left-handed catching. For dribbling and shooting, no differences were observed in hand frequency between conditions. The success rate of all analyzed skills was similar between the hands in both low- and high-pressure conditions. ConclusionOur results showed that game pressure could selectively modulate hand preference for passing and catching skills in elite-level basketball while presenting no significant effect on performance between hands.

Automated badminton smash recognition using convolutional neural network on the vision based data

Sport performance analysis in sports practice cannot be separable. It is important to help coach analyse and improve the performance of their athletes through training or game session. Due to the advancement of technology nowadays, the notational analysis of the video content using various software packages has become possible. Unluckily, the coach needs to recognize the actions manually before doing further analysis. The purpose of this study is to formulate an automated system for badminton smash recognition on widely available broadcasted videos using pre-trained Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) method. Smash and other badminton actions such as clear, drop, lift and net from the video were used to formulate the CNN models. Therefore, two experiments were conducted in this study. The first experiment is the study on the performance between four different existing pre-trained models which is AlexNet, GoogleNet, Vgg-16 Net and Vgg-19 Net in recognizing five actions. The results show that the pre-trained AlexNet model has the highest performance accuracy and fastest training period among the other models. The second experiment is the study on the performance of two different pre-trained models which is AlexNet and GoogleNet to recognize smash and non-smash action only. The results show that the pre-trained GoogleNet model produces the best performance in recognizing smash action. In conclusion, pre-trained AlexNet model is suitable to be used to automatically recognize the five badminton actions while GoogleNet model is excellent at recognizing smash action from the broadcasted video for further notational analysis.

Building Fields of Play: An examination of the use of notational analysis to reinterpret dynamic and sequential movement from Rugby Union to inform the creation of a new dance work

This article offers an examination of a research process that used elements taken from an elite sporting competition, in this case an international Rugby Union match, to develop choreographic thinking tools to create a new contemporary dance work. One goal of this practice-led research was to create a vehicle for penetrating the physicality and unpacking the bodily configurations created in a rugby match. Data derived from a frame-by-frame analysis of a recorded match allowed for the identification and deconstruction of sequential movement to be converted into set representational, abstract choreographic tools named movement signatures and blocks. Through this research, the main physical traits identified were entanglement, directional changeability and interlocking struggle. Subsequently, these choreographic stimuli were used in the formation of movement scores and an abstract movement vocabulary to inform the creation and performance of a non-traditional research output, Fields of Play (2015). Furthermore, this practice-led study utilized elements of Laban Movement Analysis and sports movement analysis to develop an experimental approach to movement annotation and the development of a choreographic process. Through witnessing this hybrid movement vocabulary evolve, the research revealed qualities of de-centred logic, interruption of flow and the potential for a game dramaturgy to emerge.

Predictive value of coaches’ early technical and tactical notational analyses on long-term success of female handball players

ABSTRACT Despite the importance of technique and tactics for athlete performance, there has been surprisingly little research on the value of these skills in talent identification and development. This study investigated the relationship between coaches’ early notational analyses of female youth handball players and the long-term success of these athletes. Participants included sixty-eight female handball players involved in a talent selection camp in Germany when they were between 12 and 14 years of age (mean = 14.42, SD = 0.42). All subsequently ended up as non-, semi- or professional adult players. During the initial selection camp, participants were evaluated on a range of quantitative and qualitative measures of technical and tactical skill. Results indicated significant differences between the groups, but only for the number of actions taken, not for the quality of those actions. While this seems counterintuitive, it may reflect the likelihood that more skilled and/or talented players take more actions. Further work is necessary to explore the validity and implications of these findings.

Notational Analysis Of Wheelchair Women's Badminton Matches In The International Badminton Tournament

Badminton, which can be played in all age groups for competition and recreation in the world, is the fastest racket sport and has taken its place in international tournaments. In this study, it was aimed to examine the competition performance of wheelchair women Badminton players participating in international competitions. The national team badminton in 19 wheelchair categories with disabilities from 17 countries participating in the 4th International Enes Cup Badminton Tournament with an average age of 36.66 ± 4.88, average height 1.68 ± 0.04, body weight average 59 ± 6.44 athlete (Russia, Japan, Thailand, France, Spain, Malaysia and Turkey) participated on a voluntary basis, Analysis studies were carried out on 7 single women's competitions. As a result of the study, it was determined that the most common type of shots in 1527 strokes performed by wheelchair single female badminton athletes was Clear and the least used stroke was Drive. (p<0.05). It was determined that the most striking region was the back and middle region among the 1519 hit areas performed by the athletes, while the game winning region was the front region with the highest number of 14.94% and the middle region with at least 4.17%. The game-losing hit zone, which is the game-hit hit zone, from 174 athletes performed by the athletes was analyzed as 174 hit-zone, and the game-losing hit zone was analyzed (P <0.05). It was determined that the game losing region was the frontal and at least the middle region with 74 of the most. It was determined that the athletes made a maximum of 36.82% back line error and at least 9.95% a side line error. As a result of the research, it was concluded that the athletes preferred the Clear stroke, the reason for this was the control of the game in wheelchair badminton players, the time saving in the chair control among rallies, and therefore the ethics of preference clear technique, which is a guaranteed hit.

Physical movement demands of elite-level netball match-play as measured by an indoor positioning system

ABSTRACT Physical movement demands in elite netball match-play have been limited to notational analysis or accelerometer-derived measures, due in part to the indoor environment in which they are played. Commercially available local positioning systems (LPS) using ultra-wideband communication have been designed to bring similar capabilities as global positioning systems (GPS) to indoor environments. This study aims to quantify both spatiotemporal and traditional accelerometer-derived measures, to assess the movement demands of all playing positions, during Australian national netball league matches. Total distance, metreage per minute, acceleration density, acceleration density index, acceleration load, jumps, velocity bands, acceleration bands and PlayerLoad variables have been presented for each position. Mean total distance-covered in match-play differed substantially between positions. Centre position accumulated the highest mean distance (5462.1 ± 169.4 m), whilst the Goal Shooter consistently covered the lowest mean distance (2134 ± 102.6 m). Change of direction relative to movement area was highest for the two most restricted positions based on average acceleration per 10 m covered during match-play (Goal Shooter; 7.21 ± 0.88 m · s − 2 and Goal Keeper; 6.75 ± 0.37 m · s − 2, remaining positions; 5.71 ± 0.14 m · s − 2). The positional profiles outlined in this study can assist skill and conditioning coaches to prescribe training sessions that will optimise the athlete’s physical preparation for the demands of competition.

The new Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) local feature extractor for automated badminton action recognition on vision based data

Automated action recognition is useful for improving the performance of the athletes through notational analysis. The notational analysis is usually used by the coach or notational analyst to study the movement patterns, strategy and tactics. Therefore, action recognition is the main key before further analysis can be done. This paper focused on developing an automated badminton action recognition using vision based dataset. 1496 badminton match image frames of 5 actions were studied – smash, clear, drop, net shot and lift. At first, the dataset was classified into 0.8:0.2 for training and testing the classification task by machine learning. Secondly, features of the training dataset were extracted using the Alexnet Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) model. In extracting the features, we introduced the new local feature extractor technique that extracts features at the fc8 layer. After collecting all the features at the fc8 layer, features were being classified by using machine learning classifier which is linear Support Vector Machine (SVM). The experiment was repeated using a normal global feature extractor technique. Lastly, both of the new local and global feature extractor techniques were repeated using GoogleNet CNN model to compare the performance between AlexNet and GoogleNet model. The results show that the new local feature extractor using AlexNet CNN model has the best performance accuracy which is 82.0%.

Effects of manipulating ball type on youth footballers’ performance during small-sided games

This study aimed to identify the effects of manipulating the ball type in players’ physical, technical, creative and tactical performance in two small-sided games situations: 4-a-side and 6-a-side. There were four conditions: (i) Football, using regular football ball; (ii) Handball, using handball ball; (iii) Rugby, playing with rugby ball, and (d) Mixed, at every 2 min the ball type was randomly changed. Players’ technical and creative actions were analysed through notational analysis, while GPS positional data were used to process the physical and tactical variables. During the 4-a-side, the rugby and mixed conditions induced more effects. From the physical perspective, there were moderate decreases in the total distance covered (−11.1%; ±3.1% and −6.2; ±3.6) and distance covered while jogging (−11.9%; ±3.6% and −8.0; ±3.9) in both scenarios, respectively. In tactics, there were small to moderate decreases in both conditions in the distance between team’s centroids (−5.5; ±6.0 and −6.8%; ±5.1%) and effective playing space (−16.2; ±9.8 and −20.6; ±12.3), respectively. In turn, all variables were affected by the ball type modification during the 6-a-side compared to the Football balls. Modifying the type of ball promoted small to moderate decreases in the number of successful passes and dribbles, in the fluency and versatility, as well as in most of the physical variables. Additionally, changing the ball type has also affected (small decreases) in the regularity in the distance between teams. Coaches may promote variability in the training tasks using different balls to develop the players’ adaptive movement behaviours.

Serve and Return in Badminton: Gender Differences of Elite Badminton Players

Male and female players may have different game characteristics and performance. The first two shots of a rally in badminton have tactical importance. The aim of this study is to identify players' actions and behaviors and to assess differences in serve and return between the genders on the international level. We observed 15 male and 15 female matches from top international badminton tournaments. A notational analysis was used while observing the serve type, return type and the point winner. Male players hit the backhand short serve in 91 % of points and female players started the point mostly with the forehand long serve (58 %). Both genders won 50 % of the serving points. The distribution of return type is quite equal among the drop, lob, clear, smash and net shots in female matches. While returning a short serve, the lob was 4-5 % less efficient than a net shot in both genders. Women can try to use backhand short serve more often as we found the highest efficiency of all the serve types.

Serving Patterns of Women's Badminton Medalists in the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

The aim of the present study was to describe and identify the serving performance profiles of medalists during an elite women’s badminton tournament taking notational and temporal variables into account. The sample was composed of the 14 matches (n = 1,052 rallies) played by the three medalists during the 2016 women’s singles Olympic Games badminton event (Rio, Brazil). The independent variable studied was serving player (medalist/opponent); while the dependent variables were related to notational analysis: serve type, set, and point won by the server/receiver; and the time-related variables: number of strokes per rally, rally time, rest time, and frequency of strokes. The main results showed that: (i) temporal parameters were similar for total match duration but shorter for rally time, and longer for rest time and with more strokes per rally than found in previous research; (ii) the serve effectiveness showed neutral values when analyzing serving by all the players, medalists, and opponents (around 50%); (iii) the two-step cluster analysis identified how successful players used the serve when playing short rallies with backhand short and flick serves (cluster 1), and forehand long serves (cluster 2); and during long rallies with the use of the backhand short serve, forehand short serve and forehand long serve (cluster 3). On the other hand, medalists and their opponents used forehand long serves during set 1 with durations of 8.80 s (cluster 5); and the opponents showed an independent performance using the forehand short serve during sets 1 and 2 (cluster 4); and (iv) the classification tree analysis (Exhaustive CHAID) identified the importance of different serving patterns with the gold medal player using more backhand and forehand flick serves, and the main use of backhand short serves during sets 1 and 2 in all the tournament stages. The bronze medalist used more forehand long serves during all sets, and the silver medalist showed a mixed performance of serves using the forehand short serve, the backhand short serve and the forehand long serve. The current findings may help coaches and players to manage different serving and playing patterns during training and matches according to the serve and rally requirements.