No.47 May 2006 |
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Abstract
The study of Science and Football has become a viable area of academice
work, reflected in the growth of conference communications and sports
science support systems. This development is exemplified in different
countries in Europe and across the world. Sports science in an interdisciplinary
form is now an essential element in preparing teams for success, embracing
both domestic league competitions and tournaments such as the World
Cup.
Key Words: AIS, La Liga, match analysis, Premier League Background and Introduction
Contemporary association football (soccer) at a professional level
is characterised by a more systematic approach towards preparation for
play than was traditionally employed. Players, manager and coach now
typically have the support and guidance not only of medical staff and
physiotherapists whose primary roles are focused on injury management
and treatment but also the access to scientific personnel. These “science
support” staff may include physiologists, psychologists, nutritionists
and performance analysts; indeed some top clubs have called on the services
of vision scientists and lifestyle counsellors to help their players.
These support systems have also been employed in one form or another
by managers of national teams and Football Academy Directors where the
focus is on the holistic development of talented young players. There
is no single model that is transferable across clubs and countries.
In some cases experts are employed by the club in a full-time or part-time
capacity to form a “sports science department”. In contrast
the club may call on consultancy services of experts at their local
University and utilise their professional expertise as and when needed.
A further alternative is that existing internal staff are targeted for
continuing professional development to acquire the relevant scientific
qualifications on a part-time basis. Unless “sports science”
services are available, there is now a recognition that the team is
at a disadvantage compared to adversaries who are better advised.
The encroachment of science into the area of football is not restricted
to the optimisation of performance. Indeed the range of scientific interest
in this sport extends from the physical minutiae of participation such
as the engineering design of boots to fit the characteristics of the
playing surface, to the social milieu inhabited by football fans. Many
volumes of academic output have been produced in attempts to dissect
the nature of the passion displayed by football supporters and eminent
economists have struggled to articulate the business model in the professional
game. The study of research topics in the broad canvas of football is
now accepted as a valid academic interest rather than a wasteful pursuit.
In this article, the milestones in the development of science and football
are first described before examples are given of sports science support
work in different countries. This theme is further developed by making
connections between field-based work in a football context and laboratory-based
studies. Some attention is given to research projects initiated by football’s
governing bodies, culminating in the identification of issues relevant
to performance of international players at major tournaments such as
the World Cup. The Validity of Science and Football
The validity of science and football as a viable academic entity is
no longer questioned within academic institutions. The prototype Diploma
in Science and Football was instituted at Liverpool John Moores University
in 1991 and quickly evolved into a full-blown BSc (Hons) degree. The
curriculum is mounted on a solid basis of fundamental sciences, the
focus of application being football as opposed to sport in general which
characterises “sports science” programmes. There are now
similar awards offered at other institutions, for example at the University
of Orebro in Sweden. The number of Masters courses directed at the scientific
understanding of football has also grown, throughout European institutions
in particular. Furthermore doctoral theses on football or directly relevant
to it are now commonplace amongst the post-graduate research activities
of “sport and exercise science” departments globally.
The need to bridge the gap between the sciences and the practical world
of football provided the stimulus for the World Commission of Science
and Sports to establish a dedicated steering group. The International
Steering Group on Science and Football held its inaugural World Congress
on Science and Football at Liverpool in 1987. All the football codes
(including Association Football, American, Australian and Gaelic Football,
Rugby League and Rugby Union) were embraced in its agenda. The relevant
topics were wide ranging, as is apparent form the list shown in Table
1. The Congress is held every four years and leaves a legacy of Proceedings
on each occasion (Table 2). The next event is scheduled for Antalya,
Turkey during 17th-21st January 2006.
The formalisation of special interest groups for science and football
is reflected in the activities of other professional bodies. Since its
first Annual Congress in Nice in 1996, the European College of Sport
Science regularly holds symposia and workshops on the topic, including
satellite symposia in Rome, 1999 and in Salzburg 2003. The First Asian
Congress on Science and Football was held at Jikei University, Tokyo,
Japan on 2nd-5th November 1995, the 3rd Congress being located at Oman
in 2005. Japan has its own highly active professional body, the Japanese
Society for Science and Football. The Society held is inaugural congress
in 2004, the next event being scheduled for Waseda University, January
6-7, 2007. An International Science and Football Symposium was also
held in 1993 and in 2003 in Melbourne, Australia. All these conferences
and symposia reflect a growing global interest in the area of football
science.
The status of research into science and football has been authenticated
by the publication of peer-reviewed work, notable among these have been
the Special Issues of the Journal of Sports Sciences devoted to nutrition
(1994, 12, Summer 51-550), fatigue (1997, 15 No. 3, 245-381), talent
identification and development (2000, 19 No. 9, 655-769), preparation
and training (2005, 23 No. 6, 559-658) and an update on FIFA’s
consensus statement on nutrition (2006, 24, Special Issue). These publications
are complemented by an increasing number of research-based books on
different aspects of football. Governing Body Initiatives
The governing bodies responsible for the game have played a role in
boosting the scientific knowledge base in many instances. The international
governing body in particular, FIFA, has directed its research programmes
towards epidemiological aspects of injuries in the game. Research output
has included two special issues of the American Journal of Sports Medicine,
and its flagship programme is the F-MARC project (FIFA Medical Assessment
and Research Centre), a four-year project devised by the FIFA Committee
for Sports Medicine to monitor and analyse football-related injuries.
The projects are organised by FIFA’s own research staff in collaboration
with key external partners.
The projects supported by FIFA are not limited to investigations of
injuries. The consensus statement on nutrition in football agreed by
invited experts provided the scientific bearing for changing the rules
with respect to availability of fluids for players during the 1994 World
Cup. The statement was updated at a meeting convened at FIFA’s
Zurich headquarters in August 2005 and published as a Supplement in
the Journal of Sports Sciences in 2006. Other areas of investigation
include the stresses on referees and the special concerns of Muslim
players continuing to train and compete whilst observing the strict
rules of Ramadan fasting during the holy month. Lesser awards funded
by FIFA include its annual Havelange Scholarship which is open to competition
from students worldwide to support a minor research project.
The concerns of the international ruling body about injuries have been
reflected in the activities of its constituent confederations and a
number of national governing bodies. These programmes have generated
data to determine risk factors inherent in the game. The European body,
UEFA, demonstrated the success of co-ordinating data from several of
the top clubs by using electronic means of collecting data on a repetitive
basis. It has also supported the investigation of “under performance”
in European players at the 2002 World Cup.
The world of high-performance sport is characterised by a pragmatic
approach towards supporting research and football is no different in
this respect. Practitioners in the game want immediate answers whereas
the research process takes time for its proper planning and execution.
Nevertheless there are examples of support from national governing bodies
for both short-term and longer-term projects. The Swedish F.A., for
example, was sufficiently concerned about overtraining to fund studies
of the physiological stresses associated with training camps for young
footballers and of a congested competitive fixture list. Both projects
contributed to the scientific literature (Malm et al., 2004), findings
that are valuable to other workers in the field. Similar examples may
be cited for the Football Association which has promoted work on analysis
of performance in World Cup tournaments (Taylor et al., 2002), talent
identification (Williams and Reilly, 2000) and the impact of the Premier
League on styles of play and physiological load on players (Strudwick
and Reilly, 2001). Sports Science Support Work
Personnel engaged in sports science support work may be given a clear
brief for their role, although often this is not the case. The role
may be quite specific as in match analysis, nutritional guidance, physical
conditions and fitness assessment, lifestyle counselling, psychological
advice and so on. The sports scientist may also be integrated into a
support team and work alongside other professionals. As the input of
scientific know-how becomes appreciated, professional clubs and national
teams construct their own sports science departments or units. Examples
of the structure and scale of sports science support for two European
countries are provided in the next section.
The applied work must be viewed primarily as a service to the players
and to the club concerned. Nevertheless, this work may provide research
output in the public domain, provided data are collected systematically
and procedures are thoroughly documented. The information is of general
interest when data extend beyond being merely descriptive and can be
organised to address a specific question. Repeated monitoring of growth
and fitness data on young players can, for example, form a longitudinal
or quasi-longitudinal study of interest to paediatric scientists.
Interventions in training can also be structured so that they form
an acceptable research design without compromising professional concerns.
Such an approach has been helpful in establishing the relative merits
of football-specific training and formal training without the ball (see
Reilly, 2005). The recording of work-rate in matches can yield relevant
outcome variables for interventions whether these are related to training,
nutrition or psychology.
The sport scientist can be the vehicle for interfacing novel technology
with practice in the football context. This function applies to developments
in computer-aided technology for motion analysis, techniques for mental
training or physical training, and for monitoring responses to training
and recovery. Individual sweat and electrolyte losses have been monitored
in top teams to provide tailored nutritional advice to players about
their specific needs (Shirreffs et al., 2005). The monitoring of physiological
responses to training provided a valuable means of establishing training
insights by means of recording heart rate using radio telemetry (see
Reilly, 2005). Its use has evolved to one of regulating training intensity,
for example when “recovery” is a priority, rather than being
merely descriptive of players’ reactions. Football has also been
used for evaluating the viability of new technologies, such as monitoring
core body temperature using an ingested pill for short-range telemetry
during competition (Edwards and Clark, 2006). The English Premier League
Sports science support systems have been adopted by practically all
of the Premier League football clubs and by a number of clubs in the
lower leagues. The manner in which sports science support is structured
and adopted is not uniform, depending on such factors as the attitude
of management, the resources available and the personnel recruited.
Some may favour performance analysis and nutrition whilst others prioritise
psychology and physiology (strength and conditioning). Typically the
gamut of scientific disciplines is covered, the preferences being expressed
in full-time and part-time posts and in the allocation between the professional
squad and the Youth Academy.
The majority of clubs have installed in their home grounds synchronised
multi-camera systems for analysis of performance of players. Formative
and summative feedback may then be provided to players following the
game. Monitoring of players in training is almost universally practiced,
made feasible by the “team system” for recording heart rates.
Nutrition is accepted as an essential part of preparation for competition,
although few nutritionists are employed in football on a full-time basis.
Physiologists are engaged in planning the fitness training programme,
the warm-up and cool-down and the assessment of players’ conditioning
levels. The sports science support team at one of the Premier League
clubs is outlined in Table 3, and includes those dedicated to the Football
Academy as well as the top team. Generally the physicians for the top
team and the physiotherapists would attend staff meetings of the “department”.
University facilities are sometimes used where field tests cannot provide
the physiological information that is necessary. Such facilities include
on-line respiratory gas analysis for determination of maximal oxygen
uptake (Fig. 1), formal assessment of “lactate threshold”
on a motor-driven treadmill protocol, isokinetic dynamometry for assessment
of asymmetry or muscle imbalances, and dual-energy-xray-absorptiometry
(DEXA) for measurement of body composition. The latter has proved highly
acceptable and informative to players for regular monitoring of percent
body fat, although the equipment was initially designed for measuring
bone mineral density. The result is that a large database is generated
for normative purposes which forms a valuable reference for comparing
individual observations. It also adds to the longitudinal studies that
become possible, such as the influence of seasonal variations. La Liga: Spain
Spain is widely considered one of the strongest football countries
in the world. FIFA world ranking data available since August 1993 places
Spain on an average ranking of sixth, and its home first division championship
“La Liga” is regarded as one of the wealthiest and most
competitive leagues in Europe. The extent to which sport science has
contributed to the high performance level of football players in the
Spanish system, however, is not well established. The dearth of scientific
publications originating from or relating to Spanish football may have
to do either with a lack of sport science activity, or with a secrecy
regarding methods used by professional football clubs.
To the best of our knowledge, sport science support in Spanish first
division football clubs and national teams has traditionally been far
from systematic. Athletic Club Bilbao probably pioneered the recognition
of the systematic application of sport science principles as a major
contributing factor to football performance. The club appointed medical
personnel with a recognised sport science background to their medical
services in the mid nineteen nineties, and recently created a department
of research and development, as a further indication of a true commitment
to sport science support for its players, from the youth academy to
the professional level.
In recent years, other clubs have also embraced sport science, but
have done so to different degrees and through various approaches. Some
clubs have followed the approach of incorporating leading sport scientists
to their medical and support staff (e.g. F. C. Barcelona, Real Sociedad,
Valencia C. F.), whereas other clubs have signed collaboration agreements
with local academic, medical or research institutions to obtain specific
sport science support as an external service (e.g. C. A. Osasuna, D.
Alavés). These services may involve nutrition and nutritional
ergogenic aids, physiological testing and monitoring, strength and conditioning,
injury prevention and treatment, and/or game analysis. As an example,
an investigation was recently carried out by a group of international
researchers at Real Madrid C. F. to assess sweat rate and composition
during preseason training in a hot environment, which allowed for an
individualisation of the players’ hydration strategies (Shirreffs
et al. 2005).
Regarding physiological preparation and monitoring, some clubs have
performed altitude training camps during the preseason and also during
short breaks in the competition calendar in the mid-season (e.g. Athletic
Club Bilbao, Real Sociedad), in an attempt to obtain the purported benefits
of living and training at altitude, or living high and training low.
We are also aware of a systematic biological control programme developed
by the medical services of Valencia C. F.
In the injury prevention area, F. C. Barcelona performed some pioneering
work in the 2003-2004 season, by implementing an innovative strength
and conditioning programme with a strong focus on eccentric exercise
with the use of gravity-independent mechanical devices which provide
resistance during coupled concentric and eccentric muscle actions, through
the inertia of spinning fly-wheels and cones. Some clubs (e.g. Athletic
Club Bilbao, Atlético Madrid, F. C. Barcelona) are also experimenting
with tensiomyography as an injury prevention tool. This innovative technique
allows to detect and analyse separately a player’s superficial
muscles’ properties through the observation of contraction time
and displacement in response to varying electrical impulses.
A strong focus has also been placed by many clubs on the area of game
analysis, as indicated by the fact that eleven of the first division
clubs are using the AMISCO PRO game analysis system, which provides
a 2D reproduction of the game allowing a precise performance analysis
of all the players throughout the match.
Sports science and football at the Australian Institute of Sport
A very different approach to sports science support from the League-based models we described above for the Premier League and La Liga can be found at the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) football programmes. Football was one of the eight founding sports of the AIS. The AIS runs football programmes for both men and women. The men’s programme was established in 1981 with the broad aims of identifying and developing players for the national under-20 youth team and developing coaches through the Scholarship Coaching scheme. AIS Women’s Football began as an Olympic Athlete Programme initiative and commenced in Canberra in July 1998. The programme offered 20 full-time scholarships to the national team (the “Matildas”) in preparation for the World Cup Qualifiers (October 1998), World Cup (June 1999) and the 2000 Sydney Olympics. The programme is now camps-based (i.e. scholarship players live and train in their respective state academies, but gather for training camps at the AIS several times a year). Football players have honed their playing skills at AIS with the help
of a holistic programme that includes advanced training techniques,
sports science and sports medicine, and opportunities for competition.
In terms of sports science support, players and coaches benefit from
the permanent support of the AIS Sports Science/Sports Medicine (SSSM)
programmes. These contribute to their performance development through
the integration of the highest standards of provision and research in
applied sports science and sports medicine. The so-called Athlete and
Coach Services area includes all the service delivery departments of
the AIS, which in terms of SSSM comprises: Clinical Services including
medicine, physical therapies, strength and conditioning, performance
psychology and skill acquisition; and Sport Sciences including nutrition,
biomechanics, physiology, performance analysis and fatigue and recovery.
Players and coaches have permanent, unlimited access to the SSSM services.
In addition to sports science and medicine support, good examples of
the football related applied research approach pioneered at the AIS
by the late Douglas Tumilty can be found in the sports science literature
(Cox et al., 2002; McLean and Tumilty, 1993; Tumilty, 1993). The AIS also features a National Talent Search Programme designed to help sports identify talented athletes (12 years and older) and prepare them for participation in domestic, national and eventually international competition. The programme utilises information across all disciplines of the sports sciences to identify young athletes with characteristics associated with elite performance. Within this context, a recent experience was carried out to identify and develop potential female football players at a relatively advanced age (Hoare & Warr 2000). Laboratory based work
Whilst applied sports science has evolved to create its own tools of
assessment, such as the creation of field-based fitness tests in a football
context questions arising in practice may sometimes be addressed only
in laboratory conditions. This link between practice and theory is exemplified
in the treadmill protocols simulating the exercise intensity of football
that have been adopted for experimental investigations.
Drust and co-workers (2000a) designed an intermittent exercise protocol
in which the activities were varied in a systematic manner alternating
between walking, jogging, cruising, sprinting and occasional static
periods. The sequence of changes could be programmed into a motor-driven
treadmill in 22.5 or 15-min cycles with a 15-min rest separating two
45-min halves. The protocols were planned from results of work-rates
in matches to induce physiological responses corresponding to observations
in real match-play. This simulation of the competitive work-rates has
been used to study the effect of pre-cooling the body before starting
to play in hot conditions (Drust et al., 2000b), the challenge imposed
by match-play on the immune system (Sari-Sarraf et al., 2006), the progression
of muscle fatigue during a game (Rahnama et al., 2006) and compare different
formulations and administration of sports drinks (Clarke et al., 2005).
An alternative protocol used to evaluate the ergogenic effects of a
sports drink comprised shuttle running for 75 min at an average intensity
corresponding to playing a game, then exercising until exhaustion at
% O2 max (Nicholas et al., 2000).
Simulation of situations typical of competition have been used to investigate
the nature of decision-making in football and identify those individuals
who consistently make good choices. Individuals may be asked to respond
to scenarios presented in video clips on large screens in front of them.
During the process their eye-movements, ground reaction forces and actions
are recorded. This kind of experimental set-up has been used in understanding
the behaviour of goalkeeper and striker during the penalty kick and
in the anticipation skills of talented young players characteristic
of “game intelligence” (Williams, 2000). The World Cup Player
Playing in a World Cup tournament should arguably represent the pinnacle
of a professional footballer’s career. Yet not all players achieve
their peaks or play at their best on the occasion of the sport’s
greatest showpiece. This “underperformance” has been investigated
for players at the 2002 tournament in Korea and Japan in an attempt
to explain the lack of success of some European teams, notably the 1998
champions, France.
It appeared that an exhausting domestic calendar can have adverse carry-over
effects into the World Cup finals (Ekstrand et al., 2004). Those players
with a heavy competitive engagement, both in the national league and
in the European Champions League, were most affected. The wear-and-tear
associated with competing twice-a-week and the short time between the
end of the league competitions and the start of the World Cup left inadequate
opportunity for a planned recovery-retraining cycle. Since players from
all continental confederations could be affected, this issue of arriving
fresh and fit for the World tournament has been a common concern prior
to the 2006 World Cup.
Indeed, the lifestyle of the modern professional player can be physiologically
taxing. Those with dual responsibility for club and country may have
frequent engagements that entail travel across multiple time-zones and
to different climates. South American, Asian and Australian players
are most affected by the former stress and African players by the latter.
Since jet-lag and heat stress both can adversely affect football performance,
these players cannot always play to their capabilities. This fact can
cause tension between the professional clubs that employ the players
and the national associations the players represent. Overview
Sports science has grown to be both an accepted academic discipline
and a valid area of applied professional work. This evaluation is apparent
in the context of science and football. Sports science support teams
now operate in a football culture which was traditionally hostile to
extraneous influences. Scientific knowledge is now utilised to the benefit
of top professional teams and youth academies. The governing bodies
also play a part by highlighting areas for research and publicising
findings. Those with aspirations for their team’s success in major
competitions can ill afford to ignore the possibilities that scientific
input can ease the way for them to achieve their goals.
Table 1. Themes offered for open communications to the First World Congress on Science and Football. Congress Themes ![]() Table 2. Proceedings from the World Congress on Science and Football.
Table 3. Sports science personnel
in one Premier League club
Figure 1. An England International player is assessed for maximal physiological function on an incremental treadmill protocol. ![]()
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Contact:
Thomas Reilly Research Institute for Sport and Exercise Sciences Liverpool John Moores University Henry Cotton Campus 15-21 Webster Street Liverpool, L3 2ET United Kingdom T.P.Reilly@ljmu.ac.uk ![]() http://www.icsspe.org/portal/index.php?w=1&z=5 |