A comparison between men’s and women’s elite football

Abstract

The vast range of men’s performance analysis research available is utilised by elite football clubs throughout the world. The recent rise in women’s participation has seen research increase however the differences between the two genders overall have not had a huge focus. Post event analysis of 10 matches (5 women and 5 men) from the 2012 London Olympics was undertaken including a range of national teams. Sportscode was used to record a range of performance indicators for both teams in each match. Reliability procedures conducted included an intra-observer test producing a kappa statistic which indicted all the performance indicators had a very good strength of agreement. The performance indicators recorded revealed a majority of similarities between the genders. The differences identified were within the possession origins, revealing two significant differences. The non-parametric Mann-Whitney U test revealed that men achieved significantly more possession origins from contests and free kicks (p<0.05). Non significant differences (p>0.05) were found within the following variable categories; possession, final third entries, challenges, errors, fouls committed, passing and attempts on goal. In conclusion the majority of performance indicators within the genders were found to not be significantly different.