- Title
- Exploring the Effects of Instruction and Game Design on Youth Soccer Players' Skill Involvement and Cooperative Team Behaviour
- Creator
- O'Brien-Smith, Jade; Smith, Mitchell R.; Lenoir, Matthieu; Fransen, Job
- Relation
- Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport Vol. 96, Issue 2, p. 109-115
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02701367.2024.2368597
- Publisher
- Routledge
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2025
- Description
- Objectives: The relationship between task constraints and player behaviors is of interest to coaches tasked with designing practice to optimize learning. This study aims to compare the skill involvements and cooperative team behavior of teams of youth soccer players engaged in a goal exaggeration and/or a prescriptive coach instruction condition compared to a free-play control condition. Methods: Twenty male soccer players aged 12-15 participated in small-sided games under four conditions: free-play, goal exaggeration, prescriptive coach instruction, and combination over four weeks. Using video footage, teams' collective skill involvements (shot, pass, dribble) and passing network characteristics (closeness, density, and betweenness) were measured for each game. Results: A Friedmans rank test identified that playing conditions resulted in significant differences in attempted dribbles (p < .001), goals scored (p < .001), network density (p = .001), closeness (p < .001) and betweenness (p = .002). Teams attempted to dribble the most in the free-play and goal-exaggeration conditions, and the most goals were scored in the goal-exaggeration and combination conditions. Additionally, teams exhibited more well-connected passing networks (i.e. higher density, higher closeness, and lower betweenness values) in the combination condition and higher network density in the explicit instruction condition. Conclusions: The results of this study indicate that coach instruction may be more associated with cooperative team behavior, whereas free-play or manipulating task constraints in the absence of instruction may be associated with players attempting more individual actions.
- Subject
- constraints; dynamical systems; small-sided games; sports performance
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1518739
- Identifier
- uon:57373
- Identifier
- ISSN: 0270-1367
- Rights
- © 2024 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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