Abstract

In soccer, in addition to skills improvement, raising the tactical understanding of the coach leads to an improved team performance. The purpose of this study was to make a longitudinal inspection of how tactical understanding is impacted by changes in the ability to make decisions and the ability to convey information, which are thought to be related to the tactical understanding of the coach. The scope of the study covered 62 players belonging to women’s soccer clubs. At the beginning and end of a 5-month intervention period, a survey was conducted to evaluate the ability to make decisions and the ability to convey information. The results were classified into an increase group that made an improvement, and a decrease group that worsened. Also, the players’ tactical understanding was evaluated using video tasks, and the degree of change during the intervention was calculated. As a result of the analysis, for the ability to make decisions and the ability to convey information, the increase group had a significantly higher rate of change than the decrease group with regard to tactical understanding. To raise the level of tactical understanding, it is important to increase the ability to make decisions or to convey information.

1. Introduction

In open skill sports, in order to constantly adapt to changing situations, the ability to assess the situation and maintain visual attention are important, as well as skill and mental and physical conditioning ^{1, 2}. While soccer is played on pitches that are larger than those of other games, each player touches the ball for about one minute of the 90 minutes of the match ³, which means that passing skills and off-ball positioning are important. Garganta ⁴ reported that a team’s performance can be improved by raising the understanding of the tactics of the coach. Therefore, coach must not only teach skills but also convey their tactics to the players ⁵.

However, in the case that the players are not given a sufficient tactical understanding, the coach may feel stressed and may also give improper coaching ⁶, including corporal punishment and verbal abuse. In Japan, there were 695 cases in which teachers (coach) administered corporal punishment to children or students ⁷. This kind of coaching not only destroys trust between the coach and the player but also worsens the motivation and performance of the player, puts the player into a slump, and may even lead to the player quitting the sports. Adam et al. ⁸ reported that excessive tactical instruction from the coach leads to a decline in player performance, which means that it is necessary for the coach to independently learn methods on tactics. Based on the above, the coach should not only convey the tactics to the players, but the players should also gain an understanding of tactics for themselves.

Until now, experimental and ecological studies of decision-making among soccer players have been conducted ⁹. However, these studies surveyed the factors and skills of players in connection to decision-making, and there have been almost no studies of the players’ understanding of the coach’s tactics. The authors ¹⁰ made a cross-sectional inspection of the connection between tactical understanding and thinking about the game (22 items) and clarified that players with a higher tactical understanding surpassed other players in their ability to convey information and to make decisions. However, as it was not a longitudinal inspection, the causal relationship of the two abilities and tactical understanding is unclear.

Thus, this study’s objective was to inspect the impact of changes in the ability to make decisions and convey information on tactical understanding.

2. Method

The participants in this study were 68 players belonging to women’s soccer club aiming to improve its playing ability (18.4±2.0), and 62 players who responded to both the Pre and Post surveys were targeted. Subjects were classified into 27 people (age 20.4 ± 1.3) belonging to the Top team (team-T), 20 players (age 19.9 ± 0.9) belonging to the Second team (Team-S), and 15 senior high school players (age 16.7 ± 1.1) at their sub-team (Youth team: Team-Y). The coach (manager) was a male (42 years old, with 15 years of coaching experience) who was in charge of Team-T and the entire club. The following survey was conducted after the participants or their parents / guardians were given a full understanding of the study details and objectives and after obtaining their consent in writing. The study plan was approved by the human research ethical review board (2021-04) of the Fukui University of Technology.

The players’ understanding of the manager’s tactics was evaluated using a video task. This task covered two matches played by Team-T in the D1 Nadeshiko League (the top women’s soccer league in Japan consisting mainly of amateurs and university students), with surveys being conducted in April (Pre) and October (Post) in 2021 (Pre: 1-0, Win; Post: 0-0, draw). The manager took charge of the club from around the beginning of the year of the survey, and the players increased their understanding of the manager’s tactics through daily practice and matches. Therefore, there was a 5-month period between the two matches. To make the visual angle and ground condition consistent, the scope of the survey covered matches played in the same stadium.

Based on the 7 coaching practice themes provided to coaches by the Japan Football Association and the 3 settings added as required by the manager, making a total of 10 (see Table 1), the manager provided 3 options (Figure 1) for each setting that he thought would be an issue in the future (Pre: 37 tasks, Post: 34 tasks), with 3, 2, or 1 point/s being conferred in order of the option that was closest to the tactics required by the manager (Table 2, Table 3). In other words, higher scores indicated a player’s greater understanding of the manager’s tactics. Due to the difference in the number of tasks between Pre and Post, in this study, a score percentage was calculated for Pre and Post (total score/perfect score) and the evaluation variable was set as the score change rate ([Post – Pre] / Pre).

Samejima et al. ¹⁰ inspected the connection between the understanding of the manager’s tactics and thinking about the game among women soccer players and reported that those who excelled in the former also excelled in their ability to convey information (sharing information through conversation with teammates) and the ability to make decisions (quickly making decisions about the flow of the match). In this study, in both Pre and Post, a five-stage response was sought to items evaluating the former ability, namely, (1), Disagree, (2) Moderately disagree, (3) Neither agree or disagree, (4) Moderately agree, and (5) Agree. The results were classified by an increase group that made an improvement (ability to convey information: 19 people, ability to make decisions: 19 people) and a decrease group that worsened (ability to convey information: 16 people, ability to make decisions: 15 people). Regarding those whose results did not change, 27 people had no change in the ability to convey information and 28 people had no change in the ability to make decisions.

Regarding the two items, the ability to convey information and the ability to make decisions, the difference in the score change rate between the two groups was inspected in an unpaired t-test. The effect size (Cohen’s d) was calculated in order to study the size of the gap between the average scores, with 0.2 set as small, 0.5 as medium, and 0.8 as large. The level of significance of statistical hypothesis testing in this study was set at 5%.

3. Results

Table 4 shows the basic statistics for the score change rates of the increase group and decrease group for the ability to convey information and the results of the analysis. A significant difference between the groups was found for the score change rates, and the effect size was medium (d = 0.71).

Table 5 shows the basic statistics for the score change rates of the increase group and decrease group for the ability to make decisions and the results of the analysis. A significant difference between groups was found for the score change rates and the effect size was medium (d = 0.71).

4. Discussion

In this study, in order to inspect the hypothesis that players that improved their ability to convey information or their ability to make decisions would also improve their tactical understanding, a longitudinal study was implemented. As a result, both hypotheses were supported. Pre- and Post- surveys were conducted across a 5-month period (refer to Method). It was also not possible to have consistency in environmental factors such as the temperature, humidity, and weather during the matches. The video tasks were produced based on introspection and tasks related to the most recent match, so there were differences in the number of questions and their difficulty due to the In the Post survey, in particular, the match was against a very strong team that won the league in the year of the survey, and there were many reflections and challenges. For that reason, the average score in the video task was lower in Post than in Pre (Pre: 0.82 ± 0.07, Post: 0.79 ± 0.07). In view of the above, there was a decrease even in the scores of players who had a continuously high understanding of the manager’s tactics, and there were cases of negative score change rates. This study was considered with these limits in mind. competitive level of the opponent and the match details.

Those who underwent a decline in the ability to convey information, that is, the ability to communicate, had a lower score change rate than the players who made an improvement. In other words, those who made an improvement in the ability to convey information were found to be more capable of understanding the manager’s tactics than those whose these results that the ability to convey information and the between players are effective factors in terms of strengthening tactics, efficiency, motivation, and concentration ¹², which contributes to exhibiting the best possible performance ¹³. Also, players who had a high level of tactical understanding communicated more frequently with the manager than the other players. Therefore, these reports support the results. In this study, the quality of the ability to convey information was evaluated on the basis of self-criticism. The ability to convey information comprises both personal and external perspectives, such as speaking, listening, and understanding, and it is difficult to make an accurate evaluation through self-criticism alone. For that reason, an issue for the future is to create an index for an objective evaluation of the degree of the ability to convey information, which is needed in order to make an evaluation.

Those who underwent a decline in the ability to make decisions had a lower score change rate than the players who made an improvement. In other words, those who made an improvement in the ability to make decisions were found to be more capable of understanding the manager’s tactics than those whose score decreased. There have been, many studies that used video tasks to evaluate the differences between players who excel at the ability to make decisions and those who do not. The ability to make decisions covered by those studies refers mostly to an evaluation of the understanding of general tactical theory by soccer coaching specialists. Although there are almost no reports regarding an increase or decrease in the understanding of the manager’s tactics, as in this study, it is clear from these results that the ability to convey information and the ability to make decisions are valid factors. The average score and standard deviation of those who increased in both factors (7 people) was 0.05 ± 0.08, and, in comparison to those who only improved in the ability to convey information or the ability to make decisions, those who improved in both had a higher score change rate. Therefore, in order to raise the understanding of the manager’s tactics, an effective method is to take an approach toward the player’s ability to convey information and the ability to make decisions. As a challenge for the future, it will be necessary to carry out intervention training in order to raise the ability to convey information and/or the ability to make decisions of players with a low understanding of the manager’s tactics, and to verify the results.

In tactical training, small team games and virtual reality are used. However, in larger pitches, it is difficult to convey the manager’s instructions to the player accurately, and the player may continue playing without correctly understanding the tactics. Therefore, by devising ways for the player to assuredly grasp the manager’s instructions in regular training using Information and Communication Technology (e.g., constantly sharing information with the player using a microphone headset), the tactical understanding can be improved as well as the ability to make decisions. Also, the video task created in this study can be applied in order to deepen the manager’s tactical understanding, which is useful when trying to raise the tactical understanding of players who do not play in a match. In other words, using visuals can create a deeper common understanding of the issues on each side (the player and the manager), which may improve the ability to make in-match decisions. In order to improve the ability to convey information, in the process of engaging in this tactical training and these video tasks, it is important to have opportunities for the players to meet and give feedback, and by applying psychological approaches within that process, a further increase in effectiveness can be expected.

5. Conclusion

Those who improved in their ability to convey information or ability to make decisions also improved in their understanding of the manager’s tactics. Those who improved in both of the two items had an even greater understanding of the manager’s tactics.

Acknowledgements

None.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest associated with manuscript.

References