Re: Assessing fitness and performance in Football

[Guest guest]

Stebbing regarding filming of performances to aid evaluation:

" however I find it is still very vulnerable to the biases of those

watching " .

** The coach will be bias toward what he/she regards the best for that

individual, video is a tool to help promote discussion. That is, what role

the coach expects each individual to play, to highlight good play

(technique/dicission making) and to investigate why certain options were

taken that the coach may feel could have been executed differently. This I,

feel helps the development of the individual but will obviuosly depend on

the quality of the coach.

wrote " In my opinion, the use of Notational Analysis in football,

pioneered (I think) by Reilly at Liverpool University has the capacity to

provide much more objective data on performance for both the individual and

the team. "

** By reference to notation analysis I am assuming that you are talking

about number of tackles, completed passes, position on field the pass was

made, number of shots, etc. Again, once the data has been generated it is

still limited to the system used and what conclusions are drawn by the

coach. By the system I refer to the design utilised, what information is

collected and what is disguarded. For example, the notation system that is

used at present is real time (no filming, limited information collected)

player, position on field and actions are coded by a number system. This

allows the coach at any time to see how many complete/incomplete passes were

made by who and from where on the field of play. I would suggest the desire

would be that incomplete passes would be minimised by the defenders in their

defending third of the field. As loss of posession here could lead to an

oppotunity for the opposing team to shoot at goal. The information lost here

is what options were available to the player (if any), was it an unforced

error?

Also if tracking movements of the players throughout the game is of

interest, The use of GPS is starting to look a reliable method.

I hope this is of interest.

Melbourne Australia

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[Guest guest]

wrote

>** The coach will be bias toward what he/she regards the best for that

>individual, video is a tool to help promote discussion. That is, what role

>the coach expects each individual to play, to highlight good play

>(technique/dicission making) and to investigate why certain options were

>taken that the coach may feel could have been executed differently. This I,

>feel helps the development of the individual but will obviuosly depend on

>the quality of the coach.

, I agree with you but unfortunately I have seen video often used in a

more negative way. You must work with some good coaches.

Yes, you are correct regarding my reference to Notational Analysis.

Stebbing

London UK

[Guest guest]

Mel and Others,

Some interesting points of view expressed from my original post on what to

include in the assessment of elite footballers. I think one of the more

pertinent points to be raised was by Stebbing when he stated :

'Remember for most players their contact with the ball is limited to

around 1 minute out of 90, yet they can cover in the region of 10km per

game. The relevance and use of the ball in the fitness training process becomes

more important in the

latter stages of the training program when exposing the player to skilled

performance under

fatigue becomes more relevant and indeed essential.'

I think this illustrates the need to certainly make the assessments

specific to the game in terms of the performance requirements, whilst

perhaps keeping the skill training/assessment a separate issue.

As for evaluating performance, video tracking is indeed subjective to coach

and instructor bias, as well as extremely labour intensive and time

consuming. GPS tracking is certainly a fantastic innovation, but it's very

difficult to see the day when all players will be chipped and analysed

simultaneously. Not to mention the problems associated with analysing

training using this method. Also in Australia, a computer company was asked

to pay a ridiculously high some of money to the Australian Football League

to use this method to evaluate AFL (Aussie Rules) players. I could see

similar problems with European Leagues and football.

An interesting development has been made in this area by some colleagues of

mine at the University of South Australia (A Prof Norton and Neil

Craig) whereby a player is tracked and analysed in real time using a pen

and drawing tablet, combined with a sophisticated software system. Now,

whilst this system has its own limitations, a recent study (funded by the

AFL) led to some researchers performing extensive video analysis over an

AFL season to conclude that the average distances covered by AFL

midfielders was something like 16.8km. Using this method it would have

taken over 3 days to analyse each game. Using the new software, the figure

produced was 16.5km and analysis was instant. This system is also being

used to analyse training to ensure that training is as specific to performance

as possible.

So I think the technology is there, it's just a matter of convincing some

coaches that there IS a need for Sports Science in football.

Darren Burgess

Sydney, Australia

[Guest guest]

Football in the UK has been notorious for resistance in the area of fitness

and, even today, many teams are still highly skeptical about whether they

even need a fitness specialist. Often the team coach thinks they can do it

and even when they recognise the role of a specialist, they often interfere.

If team performances aren't good, the fitness person is one of the first to

see the door. As for the use of targeted weight training......well, forgive

me if I stop there.

*** - why is it that football coaches in the UK feel somewhat

'threatened' by conditioning staff ? What is wrong with another perspective

in this area ?

And could you tell the group which clubs have conditioning staff as well as

the extent of their role ?

Finally please do begin what, I'm sure will be, an interesting thread about

the implementation and use of 'targeted weight training' in UK football.

Regards

Ben Freeman

Melbourne, Australia

[Guest guest]

>*** - why is it that football coaches in the UK feel somewhat

>'threatened' by conditioning staff ? What is wrong with another

perspective

>in this area ?

Ben, I don't believe the coaching staff in football in the uk feel

threatened at all, on the contrary I think they perceive many fitness people

as inept and their work having dubious relevance. I guess that mindset would

then mean they see that person's perspective as of little significance.

Unfortunately, some of the early exposure the teams had was pretty

indiferent and not well received. Consequently, they have become extremely

skeptical.

>And could you tell the group which clubs have conditioning staff as well as

>the extent of their role ?

I do not have up to date data on the numbers of conditioning staff employed

by the football clubs so I can only speculate a little. I am aware that many

of the Premier League and some of the First Division clubs have such staff,

however not are all full time. I am also aware that one person was working

for two different clubs in the Premier League at the same time?? The other

issues here is how much the teams are willing to pay and how much autonomy

the staff are given which in both cases amount to not much.

Perhaps to put it into context for you Ben, consider this and as I recently

pointed out to another member of the group, a paper published last year in

the British Journal of Sports Medicine showed that a significant number of

the teams in the Premier League here did not employ a 'Chartered

Physiotherapist'. In other words the staff they used to treat and rehab

injuries were not recognised by the governing body for physiotherapy in the

UK.

>

>Finally please do begin what, I'm sure will be, an interesting thread about

>the implementation and use of 'targeted weight training' in UK football.

Simply, I see the role of weight training in football to be predominantly

two-fold. Firstly, and this is the major area I 'sell it' to football people

is as a means of decreasing risk to injury. The greatest fear for most

football clubs is losing their best players for long or indeed short periods

due to injury. One of the ironies of the subject is that most of the players

will be given resistance exercises during rehabilitation, but rarely at any

other time.

Secondly, I believe many players would benefit from regular resistance work

as part of their GPP (as Mel calls it). The modern game so to speak is

involving more and more high speed contact and athletic ability. For this

reason I feel the relevance of a more complete physical condition is

becoming more important than has previously been the case. No doubt some

players would also benefit from highly specific interventions to achieve

goals aswell.

Just two other things worth a mention, two years ago I was asked to work

with some elite junior players (17-18 years old) on their speed development

(coaches request). When we went into the gym for the first time, they

informed me that they had never used a barbell or dumbells nor had any

experience of resistance training other than some circuits (led by the

physiotherapist) using Cybex machines, this is the norm, not an exception

and leads me on two my second point. In contrast to the conditioning

facilities that I have seen lets say of a US college of Pro football team,

the strength areas in the uk facilities tend to be about one tenth the size

or smaller, and contain a limited range of variable resistance

machinery,(often a Universal type multi-gym) a Weider type bench and a set

of similar type plates and bars if your lucky. I hope there is somebody on

the list who can give examples to the contrary but I doubt it.

I hope this answers your questions, as I said previously, we are slowly

changing things but as you can gather have a long way to go yet.

Stebbing

London UK

[Guest guest]

>And could you tell the group which clubs have conditioning staff as well as

>the extent of their role ?

..... I am also aware that one person was working for two different clubs in

the Premier League at the same time??

Ben Freeman reply:

*** how could that possibly happen ?

The other issues here is how much the teams are willing to pay and how much

autonomy the staff are given which in both cases amount to not much.

Ben Freeman reply:

*** care to try and put a figure on it (for those of us considering

relocating to the UK )

Perhaps to put it into context for you Ben, consider this and as I recently

pointed out to another member of the group, a paper published last year in

the British Journal of Sports Medicine showed that a significant number of

the teams in the Premier League here did not employ a 'Chartered

Physiotherapist'. In other words the staff they used to treat and rehab

injuries were not recognised by the governing body for physiotherapy in the

UK.

Ben Freeman reply:

*** oh deary me ...... that is rather a sad situation isn't it considering

they are 'elite' athletes and professional clubs

>Finally please do begin what, I'm sure will be, an interesting thread about

>the implementation and use of 'targeted weight training' in UK football.

I hope this answers your questions, as I said previously, we are slowly

changing things but as you can gather have a long way to go yet.

Ben Freeman reply:

*** I agree it sounds like there is a bit of a ways to go but nonetheless

it appears you are moving ahead as best you can. Afterall it would perhaps

make things a tad boring if we worked in the 'perfect' environment with all

of the 'best' equipment - we ALL are always looking for ways to improve what

we are involved with.

All the best and thanks for your thoughts

Regards

Ben Freeman

Melbourne, Australia