Work Rate Analysis Examining Positional Demands in University Soccer

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine 20 different collegiate/amateur players to test for a difference in work rate levels in 5 different positional roles. As well as this an assessment of intermittent nature at this level was also a topic of study. The twenty different players examined included a majority 17 university standard players from the BUCS championships but also three players from high standard amateur Welsh leagues. The positional categories were split up into five, namely, central defenders, wide defenders, central midfielders, wide midfielders and forwards. Voice recordings were used to describe the performance of each individual player, this data was then coded in a software called DOSbox. As two observers were used a reliability match was arranged and using Altman’s (1991) guidelines of Kappa an acceptable ‘moderate’ strength of agreement was found. After a Shapiro-Wilkes test found numerous significant differences to normality (p.<0.05) suggesting a one way ANOVA test would be appropriate to compare the different positions. Numerous different findings were found which included a drop in high intensity outputs from the first half to the second half (9.2±1.6 to 8.4±1.6) as well as the different frequencies and durations of each variable in each position. The conclusions drawn from this result make different suggestions for improvements for example central midfielders could benefit from interval training.