Homogeneidade espaço-temporal de movimentação tática e estatísticas de jogo das seleções da Copa do Mundo FIFA 2014TM

Abstract

Understanding the movement and spatial-temporal occupation of athletes individually and/or collectively may allow the proposition of increasingly representative training in football. From an empirical proposal based on species dominance from ecology, the present study sought to analyze the positional status and metrics of self-organization and collective coordination of the teams in the FIFA World Cup 2014 TM considering a quantitative approach from the perspective of spatial-temporal homogeneity/heterogeneity (Shannon-Wiener index). Likewise, we aimed to verify the correlation of the aforementioned index with 25 offensive and defensive game statistics. From each match-statistics report (publicly available, FIFA portal) of the 64 matches, average vectorization data of each player was collected every 15 minutes. The vectorized status position was transposed to a campogram (18 quadrants) obtaining a matrix. As a complement, a binary variable ("higher or lower") were composed for the Shannon-Wiener indexes and ball possession considering each team in confrontation. The use of 12 different team formation structure was observed, generating 28 distinct confrontations. The 4-2-3-1 was the most used game system (64 times), followed by the 4-4-3 (18 times); the latter being used by the champion, Germany, in the whole competition. These game systems presented the 7 th and 4 th , 8 th and 6 th rankings (lowest to highest, from most homogeneous to most heterogeneous) in the Shannon-Wiener index in the group and knockout stage, respectively. Different behavior was observed among the competition phases where of the top 10 ranked teams, 5 behaved with status more homogeneous, five others heterogeneously. A significant association was noted between "higher" Shannon-Wiener index and wins in the group phase (chi^2(1)= 4.70, p= 0.03), with the same not being noted between the index and highest/lowest numbers of fouls or ball possession. Ball possession was not associated with wins (p>0.05). A significant correlation with weak magnitude was observed between Shannon-Wiener and only one offensive match statistic ("percentage of open play attempts"; rs= 0.33, p<0.05). The present study demonstrated that ecological dominance indices may represent collective self-management behaviors or spatial organization on the field of play being indicative of the association for self-organization with higher indices in relation to opponent in confrontation and wins. The dynamic interaction of different game systems and competition phases seem to dictate positional behaviors sensitive to index differentiation. Future studies may explore qualitative approaches and other indices of ecology in game analysis and football performance.