Attacking and defending team behaviour in 8v8 and 11v11

OBJECTIVE: A team’s tasks differ between attack and defence during a soccer match. The tactical organization of the players during these tasks is often practiced during training in 11v11 or small-sided games. To investigate the tactical representativeness of small-sided games, this study compared tactical team behaviour of Under-15 soccer players during attack and defence in 8v8 and 11v11 training games. METHODS: Thirty-two talented soccer players participated in this study (age 14.4 ± 0.3 years). Six 8v8 and three 11v11 training games were played on pitch sizes of 100x70m and 70x45m, respectively. Positional data were collected (LPM-system) to determine tactical team variables: length, width and surface area in attack and defence relative to pitch size (mean±SD). Differences between tactical behaviour during attack and defence in two training formats (8v8 and 11v11) were statistically evaluated. RESULTS: Relative length, width and surface area was larger during attack than defence in a 8v8 training game (p<.05). Only relative width increased during attack in an 11v11 training game (p<.05). Relative length was larger in 8v8 than in 11v11 (p<.05). CONCLUSIONS: Tactical behaviour was in line with the nature of soccer of increasing and reducing space in attack and defence, respectively. However, teams expanded their team organization in length, width and surface area during attack in 8v8 games, whereas in 11v11 games teams only expanded in width. Although smaller training games are often used for an optimal preparation of 11v11, tactical behaviour differs between training formats. Coaches can use these findings to practice different organizational patterns