Technical-tactical performance and success in the 2010-2011 Italian Serie A League: a latent variable approach

In soccer, few authors have assessed the technical and tactical performance throughout an entire season (Lago, 2007; Davies et al., 2008; Merni et al., 2008). This study aimed to individuate a set of latent variables allowing to describe the technical-tactical performance of the teams in the whole 2010-2011 season (n=760 matches) of the Italian Serie A league. A factor analysis was performed using 15 indicators of technical and tactical performance of the teams, after downloading the data from a specialized website (www.sportmediaset.it). To determine which indicators were more related to the success, an additional variable constituted by the points of each team in the final ranking was included in the analysis. The total variance explained was 74%. Six main factors were obtained as reported below (definitions, explained variance and the most representative variables are indicated) 1. “Playing in the wings” (15.8 %; crosses, corner kicks, territorial advantage) 2. “Control of the play” (15.7%; passess, ball possession, long passess) 3. “Success” (12.5%, goals scored, shots on goal, points in the final ranking) 4. “Aggressive play” (11.3%, won tackles, fouls suffered, dribblings) 5. “Failure” (9.7%, goals conceded, points in the final ranking – negatively correlated) 6. “Penalties” (9.2%, fouls committed, yellow cards received) It is possibile to create a model of the game by projecting the results of all the matches on 3D plots representing the factorial axes, thus individuating the variables more related to the success or failure. By comparing one’s team data to those of the opponents, the coaches are allowed to determine specific strengths and weakness and develop the appropriate strategies for technical and tactical training. Davies C et al. (2008), World Congress of Performance Analysis of Sport VIII, 53-57 Lago C (2007), International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport, 7:36,47 Merni F et al. (2008), World Congress of Performance Analysis of Sport VIII, 138-14