Analysis of technical effectiveness of football players within their club compared to their country

Abstract

The aim of this study was to see whether footballers are more technically effective when playing for their club compared to their country. To meet the aim of the study, two competitions were analysed. These were the English Premier League (EPL) 2013/14 season and the FIFA World Cup 2014. Four players, who were felt by the researcher to have a big influence on their teams and were both involved in the EPL and the World Cup, were chosen. All four players were watched in three games for each competition, which totalled to six games each. A hand notation system was used and was made up of thirteen performance indicators which were categorised into attacking and defending. Performance profiles for each player in both competitions were created from these results. The average and standard deviation from the results were calculated and a paired T-test and a Cohen’s D test were used to find the P values and to see whether the figure was significantly different or not and to see how big the effect size was. By using the average result in both competitions, this allowed for comparison. The results of this study found that in the EPL, players have more successful outcomes compared to players playing for their country in the FIFA world cup. It was concluded that the reason for this is because in the EPL there are players of mixed ability compared to in the World Cup where the players are the best in their position in respect to their given nationality, which leads to better defending and a quicker, more difficult game to play in. a further, somewhat surprising finding of this particular study was that there were many performance indicators that were significantly different which resulted in the players being more technically effective for their club compared to their country.