Feature: Football / Soccer
No.47
May 2006
 
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Introduction: Football - The Beautiful Game as a Field of Study
Thomas Reilly

 

The collection of reviews in this issue have been commissioned for the Bulletin of ICSSPE through the aegis of the International Steering Group of Science and Football. This body is one of the working groups of the World Commission of Science and Sports. The focus on association football (soccer) is timely, since the World Cup finals are being held in Germany from June 9 to July 9, the nation that currently also hosts the offices of ICSSPE. As this issue is produced, the whole of Germany looks forward to this grand festival of professional sport with keen anticipation. The tournament will constitute an unforgettable experience for those attending matches, watching on the giant TV screens in the football fans’ parks, or in the relative domesticity of their own homes.
Football is not just the world’s most popular sport, followed with passion and played with panache in all countries around the world. The game itself and the football communities under its spell are increasingly becoming areas of academic study and the subject of serious research. This series of brief reviews mark the forthcoming World Cup competition by focusing on four main areas. There is first an outline of the study of science and football and a description of how scientific knowledge is implemented in selected countries. In a second review, the use of match analysis is described and contemporary approaches to the objective study of players’ behaviour are explained. The search for young talent is an enduring area of investigation that has been of interest to ICSSPE for some years and this area is covered in the case of young footballers. Finally, the forgotten experts of the game, the referees and assistants– forgotten, unless their decisions are questioned by fans and commentators. The stresses on officials have been a concern of the ruling bodies and the research work on referees is summarised in this fourth article.
The ‘special issue’ highlights one sport but for a unique occasion. This sport is most certainly going to grab the attention of a new generation in a few short weeks. It will engage the emotions of partisan observers on one hand whilst others will watch the game with a detached curiosity. The authors of these articles have devoted themselves to the study of football and therefore present their perspectives of the state of knowledge about their particular areas of interest.





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