Differences Between Last Three Soccer World Cups In Field Areas And Actions During Attack
The aim of the study was to establish differences between the teams at three World Cups by using a computerized system Focus X3 to gather and analyse data on field areas and attacks. There were a total of 3880 entities (attacks) that consisted of 5778 actions in different sub-areas of the field (during World Cup ’ 98, World Cup ’ 02 and World Cup ’ 06). The analysed actions in Back field, Midfield and Front field area were described by twelve variables: RBTM, TNADA, PBLP25, PBSP5-6, PBMLP25, GPB, RP25, RP5_6, RP25, DB25, D5-6 and D25. The results show that there are quantitatively bigger changes in actions which occurred in the observed field areas during World Cups ’ 02 and 06’ compared to the World Cup ’ 98. This change, which was expected, can be attributed to more complex and sophisticated forms of a training process that improves each year. By analysing the discriminative function, it can be seen that the biggest differences occur with the variables: passing of the ball to a team-mate (PBSP-5-6) and dribbling the ball over long distances (DB25).