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International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport

2012, 12, 398-424.

Analysing Team Coordination Patterns from Player Movement


Trajectories in Soccer: Methodological Considerations
Roger Bartlett1, Chris Button1, Matthew Robins2, Aviroop Dutt-Mazumder1 and Gavin
Kennedy1
1
School of Physical Education, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
2
Chichester Centre for Applied Sport and Exercise Sciences, University of Chichester,
Chichester, UK.

Abstract

We analysed player trajectories from five eleven-a-side soccer games in


the group stage of the European Champions League to reveal the
coordination dynamics between opposing teams in open play attacks,
through the use of team centroids and various measures of team
dispersion. We found that the team centroids moved synchronously both
along and across the pitch, the former showing a stronger coupling (e.g. r
= 0.994 vs 0.756 for goals) of the teams’ coordination dynamics, as
expected. No crossing of the centroids of the two teams along the pitch
occurred for any of the 14 goals scored from open play, and only six for
all 305 open play attacks. We found little support for any general rule that
team centroids converge along the pitch during critical moments in play,
such as goals, shots on goal and tackles. Our results revealed few
differences in coordination dynamics for attacks ending in a defensive
tackle or a turn-over in possession from those ending in a goal, shot or
header shot; nor did attacks ending in a goal, or a shot or header shot
have more volatile, less predictable coordination dynamics than
unsuccessful attacks. We recommend the use of smaller groupings of
players within a team and self-organising maps to gain a greater insight
into team coordination dynamics in eleven-a-side soccer in future
research.

Key Words: coordination dynamics, eleven-a-side soccer, team centroid


and team dispersion.

1. Introduction

Automatic or semi-automatic player tracking allows the reconstruction of players’


trajectories, for example in team sports such as soccer. Automatic player tracking
systems include those based on the global positioning system (GPS) such as GPSports
SPI Pro X II (GPSports Systems, Fyshwick, ACT 2609, Australia) and radio-based
systems, such as Inmotio Local Position Measurement (LPM; Inmotio Object Tracking
BV, Amsterdam, the Netherlands); (for a detailed review see Barris and Button, 2008).
These systems require each player to wear a receiver or transmitter, which uniquely

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identify players; at present, these systems are not allowed in competitive soccer. Video-
based systems, which do not require players to have any equipment attached to them,
can track players using computer vision; Prozone3 (Prozone Sports Ltd., Leeds, UK,
www.prozonesports.com), Amisco (Nice, France, www.sport-universal.com), TRACAB
(Stockholm, Sweden, www.tracab.com.) and Venatrack (Slough, UK,
www.venatrack.com) are probably the best known of these systems. Multiple high
definition cameras track players, who require identification at the start of the tracking
process and may need re-identification if the automatic tracking fails, usually through
player occlusion. These video-based systems are, therefore, classed as semi-automatic.
All of these systems produce the trajectories of players around the pitch throughout the
game, and allow researchers with access to the trajectory data to study movements of
individual players and teams and interactions between players and teams.

At the elite level, football matches are often won or lost on the basis of one team using a
better tactical organisation of players than the other team. Traditionally performance
analysis research has been concerned with the development of performance analysis
systems (e.g. Hughes and Hughes, 2005), verifying the reliability of such systems (e.g.
Bradley et al., 2007), and examining the technical and tactical behaviour of teams and
individuals across a range of situational variables (e.g. Taylor et al., 2008, 2010).
Moreover, research has typically analysed teams or individuals in isolation.
Consequently, there is a need to move towards examining player and team interactions,
a recommendation echoed by McGarry (2009). Player tracking systems provide
movement analysts with an intriguing opportunity of measuring the coordination
dynamics between teams and players in competition. Coordination patterns are usually
analysed between two entities, in the current context two players or two teams. An
important issue to be addressed at the outset of such research concerns which variables
to calculate and subsequently how to analyse them. Analysis tools such as cross
correlation, cross correlation functions, and continuous and discrete relative phase (as
outlined by Bartlett and Bussey, 2012) have typically been used by researchers.

In the team sport context, Frencken et al. (2011) characterised two measures as
candidate collective variables: a position representing the average position of the
players in the team, and some measure of the dispersion or spread of the team. The most
robust average position is the team centroid calculated from the mean of the players’
positions (excluding the goalkeeper who is, in effect, an ‘outlier’). Indeed, the analysis
by Lames et al. (2010) of different sports teams indicated that similar principles may
underpin the collective organisation of teams’ centroids in invasion games. Various
measures can be used to express the dispersion of the teams. Bourbousson et al. (2010)
used a ‘stretch index’ to define the average distance of the players in a basketball team
from the team centroid. It should be noted that, because it summarises the distances of
all players from the team centroid (xc) and because the team centroid is calculated from
the positions (xi) of all players, then the stretch index incorporates all inter-player
distances, as shown by the bracketed term on the right of the following equation.

n n-1 n
SI = 1/n * ∑ |xi -xc| [= 2/n2 * ∑ ∑|xi - x j| ]
i=1 i=1 j=i+1

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The stretch index can be a radial measure (as in Bourbousson et al., 2010) or an across
pitch or along pitch (as in the above equation) measure; we used all three in this study.
Analysing three five-a-side soccer games, Frencken et al. (2011) used the ‘surface area’
of the team, which they defined as the area within the convex hull of the four outfield
players in the team (Figure 1 extends this concept for the ten outfield players in an
eleven-a-side soccer team). They also calculated the ‘width’ of teams, defined as the
distance between the two players furthest apart across the pitch, and the ‘length’,
defined as the distance between the two players furthest apart along the pitch.

SAy

SAx

Figure 1. Definition of convex hull, surface area length (SAx) and surface area width
(SAy) for outfield players in an eleven-a-side soccer team. The surface area is the area
bounded by the convex hull, hexagonal in this example.

Moura et al. (2012) used the same definition of surface area (for the ten outfield players
in their case) but also introduced another measure of team dispersion, the Frobenius
norm (Frob), the square root of the sums of the squares of the distances between all
pairs of players ignoring the goalkeeper:

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n-1 n
Frob = √(∑ ∑lij2 ), where lij is the (radial) distance between players i and j and n =10.
i=1 j=i+1

Thus, for the ten outfield players, Frob = √(l1,22 + l1,32 + l1,42 + l1,52 + l1,62 + l1,72 + l1,82 +
l1,92 + l1,102 + l2,32 + l2,42 + .... + l9,102). The formula here avoids ‘double counting’, as l1,22
= l2,12, and computing null distances as lij2 = 0 when i=j. It is worth noting that the
Frobenius norm is equal to n * the standard deviation of the players about the team
centroid, where n is the denominator in the standard deviation calculation. This measure
has much intuitive value, as it summarises all the inter-personal distances between
players within a team, like the stretch index but unlike the surface area. Moura et al.
(2012) used the radial Frobenius norm, but in this study we also defined a value across
the pitch (based on inter-player distances across the pitch) and a value along the pitch
(based on inter-player distances along the pitch).

Having considered a sample of the collective variables that have been used so far in
team sports, it is of interest to determine what coordination dynamics have emerged.
Using the Inmotio Local Position Measuring system, Frencken et al. (2011) measured
player positions at 45 Hz in small sided games typical of training drills, with four
outfield players per team, a smaller pitch (26 x 38 m), and no off-side rule. Pearson
product moment correlations for the team centroids of the outfield players across each
entire game were 0.94 or above along the pitch (length) and 0.80 or above across the
pitch (width). Hence, the teams as a whole moved together (in-phase coordination)
across the course of a game (this was also found for radial centroid positions of soccer
players in an eleven-a-side game by Yue et al., 2008). For 53% of the total (19) goals
scored, the team centroids crossed along the pitch, but not across the pitch. Centroid
crossings only happened before these goals, not elsewhere in the games. The surface
area correlation coefficients were -0.01 to +0.07 for the surface area, 0.30 to 0.36 for the
length and -0.01 to -0.03 for the width. Although the -0.03 and 0.07 values were
statistically significant at p<0.01, no importance can be attached to this as only 0.09 and
0.49%, respectively, of the variance is accounted for by these correlations, not
meaningful results. With a sufficient number of data points, almost any value of the
Pearson product moment correlation coefficient will be deemed significant, and in the
study of Frencken et al. (2011) there were 45 samples per second for each game of 8
minutes duration, a lot of samples per game. The dispersion measures did not support
those authors’ hypothesis of a negative linear relationship between the teams, in other
words one team ‘expanding’ while the other ‘contracted’ in an anti-phase coordination
pattern.

Duarte et al. (2012) also found a strong symmetric relation between the centroids of the
two teams in three-a-side soccer games. Importantly, as the play proceeded to critical
moments (i.e. when a final pass was made to a shooter) the distance between the team’s
centroids decreased. The authors interpreted this feature as a necessary loss in stability
between the teams before a decisive moment, such as a shot or a turnover in possession.
The surface area of the teams was highly variable, although the attacking team typically
covered a greater area of the pitch. Therefore, it seems that either the surface area of the
teams in small sided games does not capture the coordination dynamics well (see also

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Frencken et al., 2011) or that stable states of play are not a common feature of small
sided games.

Although small-sided games are an interesting sub-phase of eleven-a-side matches, it is


not clear how the specific task constraints of full-sized games influence the resulting
coordination dynamics. As player positions are more rigidly adhered to in full-sized
games, it is possible that the macro-level organisation of larger groupings of players
display more consistent surface area patterns than those of smaller groupings.
Importantly, full-sided games also have task-specific rules (e.g. offsides, set plays and
substitutions) that may make it more difficult to determine general characteristics of
coordination between teams. For example, during set plays, such as corners or free-
kicks, one might anticipate that the coordination dynamics of the two teams is less
explanatory of performance outcomes than in open play. Arguably, a moment of
individual skill (or a mistake) often determines the outcomes of set-plays. Therefore, in
the present study we chose to analyse only open play sequences in an eleven-a-side
soccer game.

Moura et al. (2012) video recorded eight Brazilian First Division Championship
matches involving 16 different teams using at least four digital video cameras. The
players were tracked with DVideo software (Barros et al., 2007), which sampled at 30
Hz although the dispersion variables were only computed at 7.5 Hz. As their data
distributions were not normal, they used non-parametric tests to analyse their data. From
visual inspection of the graphs for pairs of teams in all games and throughout each
game, they considered that the teams’ Frobenius norms, based on radial measures for all
outfield players, showed anti-phase relationships, whereas the surface areas did not.
This suggests a negative correlation between the Frobenius norms (but not the surface
areas) of the two teams – anti-phase coordination; however, Moura et al. (2012) did not
report correlation coefficients between the surface area of the two teams and the
Frobenius norms of the two teams. They did report correlations between the surface area
and the Frobenius norm of each team, which fell within the range 0.52 and 0.81; they
considered that the smaller values of these correlations showed that the two measures of
dispersion provide different information about a team’s behaviour. Both dispersion
measures indicated that when a team lost possession, the team dispersion decreased;
when a team gained possession, the dispersion increased.

Additionally, Moura et al. (2012) considered the dispersions of teams when they
attacked and were tackled, and when they attacked leading to a shot on goal; likewise,
they considered the dispersions of teams defending in the same circumstances. Teams
had greater Frobenius norms and surface areas defending when a shot was made on their
goal than when they tackled (p<0.01). When attacking, teams had greater Frobenius
norms and surface areas when they were tackled than when they shot on goal. Hence,
compression of both the defending and attacking team’s Frobenius norm and surface
area was beneficial to performance in those plays. Similar results had been found by
Okihara et al. (2004) in two Japanese soccer games for the surface area of four players
in each team.

Based on this brief overview of some recent research on interactions between teams in
soccer, there are various methodological issues that need to be considered when

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analysing coordination dynamics in soccer. In this article we discuss how to define the
actions, or events, that initiate an attack or a defence in full-sided soccer games.
Furthermore, we aimed to determine which measures, or variables, best capture the
coordination dynamics of the teams (for example, which of the nine measures of
dispersion outlined above are the most appropriate). Finally, player tracking systems
yield large and complex datasets; therefore, it is important to formulate specific
questions about the coordination dynamics that may exist between two teams. Based
upon general tactical guidelines, we assumed that successful defensive sequences (in
which a turnover in possession is forced) result from the defending team heavily
populating the area between the ball and their goal to reduce the time and space
available for shooting opportunities by the attacking side. When teams defend deep in
numbers, as depicted by the example in Figure 2a, one might expect the defending
team’s Stretch Index and Frobenius norm values (but not necessarily the Surface Area)
to be low. In contrast, successful attacks (in which a goal, shot or header is produced)
often arise from instability in the defensive team’s formation and the attacking team
maintaining possession close to the opponent’s goal (Figure 2b). The coordination
dynamics of both teams under these circumstances would be more volatile; potentially,
it may be more difficult to identify common characteristics.

a) b)

Figure 2. a) Team defending deep in numbers; b) Instability in defending team’s


formation. The team surface areas (for the 10 outfield players) are the same in both
cases, but the Frobenius norm is about 10% higher in b) than in a).

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To extend recent research on coordination dynamics in soccer (Frencken et al., 2011;
Duarte et al., 2012; Moura et al., 2012), we specifically addressed four questions:

i) Are the dynamics of team centroids strongly correlated in eleven-a-side soccer open
play?
ii) Are critical moments in play (such as goals, shots on goal and tackles) preceded by a
decrease in inter-team centroid distance or a crossing of team centroids?
iii) Do attacks ending in a defensive tackle or a turn-over in possession have
characteristic coordination dynamics? For example, the defending team’s centroid
might be strongly correlated with that of the attacking team. Defenders might also
tend to become more tightly bunched (low Frobenius norm and stretch index) within
a smaller area (low team surface area) as such an unsuccessful attack develops.
iv) Do attacks ending in a goal, or a shot or header shot have more volatile, less
predictable coordination dynamics (i.e. weak coupling between teams’ centroids and
dispersion measures)?

2. Methods

We had obtained player trajectories for all players on the field from ten matches
involving each of five teams (our ‘focus’ teams) from elite European soccer (the details
of the teams and players were anonymous) by kind permission of Prozone Sports Ltd.
Each player, identified by a shirt number, was tracked at 10 Hz throughout each game.
On-the-ball actions had also been previously coded by Prozone using their operational
definitions – for example, shot, pass, header-shot, cross, throw in, tackle. The position
of the ball was known only at each action, as the ball was not tracked.

After exploratory work, becoming familiar with the Prozone data, setting up various
Matlab programs, and looking at 13 of the games for which we had player tracking data,
we decided that, to address the various methodological issues on which we wished to
concentrate, we needed to analyse in depth five games to obtain sufficient goals for the
results to be meaningful. We chose one game for each of our focus teams, chosen so
that it was a high scoring game and to ensure that no team was duplicated – the five
games involved 10 different teams. We used two measures of team centroid (along the
pitch and across the pitch; we considered there to be no benefit in looking at the radial
position) and all nine measures of dispersion outlined in the Introduction (surface area
of the team’s convex hull, and its width and length; radial, along pitch and across pitch
stretch index based on mean distance of players from the team centroid; and radial,
along pitch and across pitch Frobenius norm, calculated from the equation in the
Introduction).

We focussed on open plays rather than set plays (for example, those from a free kick) as
our exploratory work had shown the latter to be less likely to reveal meaningful inter-
team coordination patterns. We considered four categories of open attacking plays:
those leading to goals; those leading to a shot or header-shot that did not score a goal;
those that resulted in an active loss of possession (i.e. from a tackle by the defending
team); and other attacks in which possession was lost passively (e.g. a misplaced pass of
the attacking team). All attacks started when the attacking team gained possession.

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Sequences in which a shot or header shot led to a goal were not ‘double counted’ in the
shot or header shot category. Loss of possession arising from a tackle was defined as
occurring when the tackling team retained possession for at least one further on-the-ball
action; in fact, for most tackles the change in possession lasted far longer. We
considered including sequences in the last two of these categories only when the loss of
possession occurred within, say, 25 m of the opponents’ goal measured along the pitch.
This definition is somewhat arbitrary, so we decided instead to define this distance as
the furthest from goal from which a shot or header-shot was made during the game. This
definition has the potential to be influenced by outliers, such as a speculative shot from
within the attacking team’s half of the pitch; however, it has the strength of establishing
a zone, within which all shots, header shots, and losses of possession through tackles or
other actions were defined. In game 1, for example, the zone extended to 34 m from the
goal, the distance from which the longest shot on goal was made.

We correlated the various measures of team centroid and dispersion between the two
teams (hence the attacking and defending teams) using Pearson product moment
correlations, which is an entirely appropriate method here as we had no intention of
testing whether the correlation coefficient was statistically different from zero (Howell,
2009). We then ran independent t-tests, corrected for any heterogeneity of variance, on
all measures of team centroid and dispersion comparing successful (goals plus shots and
header shots; 64 attacks) and unsuccessful (tackles plus other losses of possession; 241
attacks) attacks across all five games, using IBM SPSS Statistics 19 (SPSS, Chicago,
IL, USA). We did not use inferential statistics to compare the four different types of
attack, because of too few open play goals (only 14). We also correlated the various
measures of team dispersion against each other for all attacks, radially (e.g. surface area
(SA) vs Frobenius norm (Frob)), along the pitch (e.g. SAx vs SIx), and across the pitch
(e.g. SIy vs Froby) for one selected game (Game 1). The results of these correlations
and the consistency of our other results across games showed no need to repeat these
inter-variable correlation tests for further games. All of the results from our Matlab
program were checked against calculations from the player trajectory data using Excel
and by hand; complete agreement was obtained.

3. Results

The summary means and standard deviations (SDs) are shown in Table 1 across the five
games analysed for the various attacks by both teams in each game for each of the four
attacking categories referred to in the Methods section. We generally do not report p
values as they were nearly all significant at p<0.001 because of the many data points in
each attack; instead we report, where it seems useful, values of the coefficient of
determination (r2), which expresses the proportion of the variance in the data accounted
for by the correlation coefficient (Howell, 2009).

The five games included 305 open play attacks that met our criteria for inclusion,
discussed in the Methods section: 14 resulted in goals, 50 in unsuccessful shots or
header shots on goal; 26 in lost possession through tackles, and 215 in which possession
was lost other than through a tackle. It is worth noting (Table 1) that the correlation
coefficients between the teams were greater for the x-direction (along the pitch) than for

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the y-direction (across the pitch) for all variables, because the teams have their main
functional movement along the pitch.

3.1 Team Centroid Dynamics


Strong positive correlations were found in all cases for team centroids in both
directions; they were stronger along the pitch (the x-direction) than across the pitch (y-
direction). The weakest average centroid-x correlation was 0.931 (r2 = 87%) for the 26
open play attacks resulting in loss of play through a tackle; the weakest average
centroid-y correlation was 0.756 (r2 = 57%) for the 14 goals. The standard deviations
(SDs) were much greater for the y-centroid correlations than for the x-centroid, with the
exception of loss of possession through tackles, where the SDs were almost the same.

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Table 1. Summary of Pearson product moment correlation coefficients between attacking and defending teams across five games for four
categories of attack. SA = surface area, SAx = length, SAy = width; SI, SIx, SIy = stretch index based, respectively, on the radial, along
pitch and across pitch mean distance of outfield players from the team centroid; Frob, Frobx, Frob y = Frobenius norm based, respectively,
on the radial, along pitch and across pitch inter-player distances.
Five Games: Ten Teams Number Centroid X Centroid Y SA SAx SAy SI SIx SIy Frob Frobx Froby
Goals: Mean 14 0.994 0.756 0.270 0.772 0.132 0.435 0.439 0.279 0.491 0.742 0.282
SD 0.010 0.372 0.665 0.306 0.613 0.642 0.668 0.571 0.608 0.339 0.575
Shots/Header Shots: Mean 50 0.987 0.895 0.161 0.687 0.146 0.351 0.546 0.425 0.434 0.682 0.400
SD 0.047 0.196 0.649 0.371 0.621 0.546 0.503 0.464 0.543 0.416 0.503
Tackles: Mean 26 0.931 0.918 0.476 0.669 0.218 0.616 0.513 0.644 0.588 0.720 0.553
SD 0.174 0.171 0.570 0.487 0.557 0.543 0.505 0.490 0.539 0.391 0.536
Other Losses of Possession: Mean 215 0.943 0.858 0.414 0.568 0.264 0.489 0.486 0.467 0.527 0.602 0.446
SD 0.139 0.299 0.537 0.515 0.554 0.525 0.544 0.490 0.501 0.498 0.527
Table 2. Summary of attacks that involved crossings of the team centroids along the pitch and across the pitch as ratios to the total number
of attacks of that type.
Goals Shots or Header Shots Tackles Other Losses of Possession Total for all Attacks
GAME 1: Along Pitch 0/4 0/13 0/8 0/42 0/67
Across Pitch 3/4 11/13 7/8 27/42 48/67
GAME 2: Along Pitch 0/1 0/7 0/5 1/40 1/53
Across Pitch 1/1 5/7 2/5 28/40 36/53
GAME 3: Along Pitch 0/2 1/11 0/5 0/50 1/68
Across Pitch 1/2 9/11 4/5 26/50 40/68
GAME 4: Along Pitch 0/3 0/11 0/8 1/37 1/59
Across Pitch 3/3 5/11 6/8 25/37 39/59
GAME 5: Along Pitch 0/4 1/8 0/0 2/46 3/58
Across Pitch 1/4 5/8 0/0 21/46 27/58
TOTAL Crossings Along Pitch 0/14 2/50 0/26 4/201 6/305
TOTAL Crossings Across Pitch 12/14 35/50 19/26 127/201 193/305

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By and large, therefore, the team centroids moved synchronously both along the pitch
and across the pitch, the former being a stronger correlation that the latter. The x-
centroid correlations were significantly stronger (p < 0.005) for the 64 successful
attacks (those resulting in goals, shots or header shots) than for the 241 unsuccessful
attacks (those resulting in a tackle or other loss of possession). This contrasted with our
speculation that the coupling between team centroids would be weaker for successful
attacks.

3.2 Team Centroid Crossings or Convergence


There was no crossing of the centroids of the two teams along the pitch leading up to
any of the 14 goals being scored from open play in the five matches (Table 2). In one
goal in game 5, the two team centroids nearly converged then diverged (Figure 3 a). For
all 14 goals, there was no clear convergence of the team centroids along the pitch;
instead, the typical patterns were: almost parallel (e.g. Figure 3 b), a converging-
diverging pattern (e.g. Figure 3 c) or a slightly diverging pattern (e.g. Figure 3 d). For
nine of the 14 open play goals, the team centroids crossed across the pitch.

There were only two crossings of the team centroids along the pitch for the 50 shots or
header shots (the one in Game 5 is shown in Figure 4 a). By contrast, there were
crossings of the team centroids across the pitch for 70% of the shots and header shots
(Table 2). For tackles, there were no team centroid crossings along the pitch. For other
losses of possession, there were only four examples (e.g. Figure 4 b – d: the x-centroid
crossing not shown here lasted only 0.2 s), three of which occurred when the team
centroids were well away from the goal and two near the start of the attack. Crossings of
the team centroids across the pitch occurred in well over half of the attacks resulting in
loss of possession other than through a tackle (Table 2). Clear converging patterns of
the team centroids for shots and header shots, tackles and other losses of possession, as
for goals, were the exception rather than the rule, with team centroids generally
following similar patterns to those for goals (see Figure 3).

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a) b)

c) d)
Figure 3. Team centroids for four of the 14 open play goals: a) the only one for which the centroids came close to crossing; b) example of
an almost parallel pattern; c) example of a converging-diverging pattern; d) example of a slightly diverging pattern. Note: 0 is the half way
line.

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b) b)

d) d)
Figure 4. The only four cases of clear crossing of team centroids along the pitch: a) during a shot in Game 5, here both crossings occurs
about one third of the time through the attack and well away from the defending team’s goal; b) during an other loss of possession in Game
4, here both crossings are early on in the attack and well away from the defending team’s goal; c) during an other loss of possession in
Game 2, here the crossing is late on in the attack but well away from the defending team’s goal; d) similar to c) but for Game 5. Note: 0 is
the half way line.

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Relating to our first question, the dynamics of the team centroids were strongly
correlated in open play for all four types of attack. Our results showed little support for
any general rule that team centroids converge along the pitch during any kind of attack
and hardly any at all for a crossing of team centroids in that direction. The defending
team in these five games seemed to move to ensure that its centroid was nearer its goal
than was that of the attacking team: they failed to achieve this in only 6 out of 305 open
play attacks, less than 2%. Relating to our third and fourth questions, there was no
evidence of a stronger correlation between the two team centroids for attacks ending in
a defensive tackle or other loss of possession than for attacks ending in a goal, shot or
header shot. The two successful attack categories did not show less stable coordination
dynamics in the form of a weak coupling between team centroids.

3.3 Team Dispersions


Table 3 shows the summary correlation coefficients between the various measures of
team dispersion for one game (Game 1). The mean correlations across all four
categories of attack were all positive, and mostly strongly positive (here interpreted as r2
> 50%), but not in every case. Weaker correlations were found between SAy and SIy
for the 17 shots and header shots (r2 = 41%) and for the 9 tackles (r2 = 22%) and
between SAy and Froby (r2 = 41%). These exceptions are not surprising, as SAy is
based on only two players, the one to the furthest right on the pitch and the one to the
furthest left. The stretch index and Frobenius norm, on the other hand, incorporate all
inter-player distances for the ten outfield players, which explains the very strong
correlations between them (the weakest is for SIx and Frobx for the nine tackles; r2 =
72%). The three measures of stretch index did not, in general, give consistent negative
correlations for any given attack.

The various measures of team dispersion provide different information about how the
two teams expand and contract relative to one another, although it is not entirely clear,
as yet, which of these are the most meaningful in the game context. The values in the x-
direction, the main direction of play (along the pitch), are intuitively more important
than those across the pitch (the y-direction). The team width and team length relate to
only the two most widely separated players and the team surface area calculation rarely
involves more than seven outfield players. However, the fact that the correlations
between most of the team length and team width measures and the stretch index and
Frobenius norm measures are quite large (r > 0.71, Table 2), particularly in the x-
direction, along the pitch, could suggest that these two-player measures are not as
inappropriate to the eleven-a-side game as might have been expected.

All mean correlation coefficients for the dispersion measures were positive. The idea
that the defending team contracted while the attacking team expanded (based on
observations made by Moura et al., 2012) was not supported by these mean results. For
all measures of dispersion, the means of all attacks for all ten teams showed strong
evidence of the teams expanding together or contracting together in synchrony. The
strongest mean correlation coefficient was for team length for the 14 goals at 0.772 (r2 =
60%), the weakest for team width for the goals at 0.132 (r2 a mere 1.7%). In all cases
bar one, the dispersion measure along the pitch had larger mean positive correlation
coefficients that that across the pitch (Table 1: the exception was for SIx and SIy for
tackles). The synchronous expansion and contraction of both teams was much weaker

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across the pitch than along the pitch. Without exception, the SDs for the correlation
coefficients for all of the dispersion measures and for all categories of attack were far
greater than the SDs in the corresponding team centroid correlations (e.g. centroid-x vs
SIx). Relating to our fourth question, the mean correlations between the team centroids
across all five games were smaller for the surface area, stretch index and Frobenius
norm (all measures that account for the team dispersion both along and across the pitch)
for goals and shots plus header shots than for tackles and other losses of possession;
however, the differences were swamped by the large standard deviations (Table 1). This
potential evidence of less stable coordination dynamics between the teams for goals and
shots plus header shots was not, however, supported by the correlations along the pitch
for the stretch index or Frobenius norm, which were very similar for the two
‘successful’ and the two ‘unsuccessful’ categories of attack. The team length (SAx)
correlation was actually greater for goals than for other losses of possession, but this
was again swamped by large standard deviations (Table 1). The surface area
correlations were significantly weaker (p = 0.01) for the 64 successful attacks (those
resulting in goals, shots or header shots) than for the 241 unsuccessful attacks (those
resulting in a tackle or other loss of possession), while the team length (Sax)
correlations were significantly stronger (p = 0.025).

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Table 3. Summary of Pearson product moment correlations between various measures of dispersion for one game. OLP = Other losses of
possession; SA = surface area; SI = stretch index; Frob = Frobenius norm; x = along pitch, y = across pitch.
Game 1 Number SA-SI SA-Frob SI-Frob SAx-SIx SAx-Frobx SIx-Frobx SAy-SIy SAy-Froby SIy-Froby
Goal: Mean 4 0.904 0.912 0.974 0.877 0.959 0.889 0.726 0.881 0.939
SD 0.104 0.100 0.031 0.217 0.058 0.169 0.304 0.138 0.089
Shots/Header Shots: Mean 17 0.847 0.832 0.962 0.863 0.947 0.950 0.639 0.786 0.937
SD 0.248 0.298 0.063 0.163 0.063 0.079 0.410 0.350 0.083
Tackle: Mean 9 0.824 0.900 0.875 0.740 0.944 0.850 0.465 0.640 0.928
SD 0.319 0.119 0.214 0.446 0.083 0.333 0.555 0.505 0.108
OLP: Mean 47 0.869 0.881 0.978 0.719 0.871 0.924 0.725 0.838 0.942
SD 0.234 0.238 0.036 0.368 0.238 0.184 0.374 0.301 0.115
Table 4. Summary of negative Pearson product moment correlation coefficients between attacking and defending teams’ dispersion
measures for individual games. SA = surface area; SI = stretch index; Frob = Frobenius norm; x = along pitch, y = across pitch.
Number SA SAx SAy SI SIx SIy Frob Frobx Froby
Game 1: Goals: Mean 4 0.381 0.677 -0.171 0.499 0.421 0.408 0.524 0.826 0.086
Goals: SD 0.735 0.452 0.665 0.748 0.595 0.408 0.745 0.247 0.583
Tackles: Mean 8 0.373 0.920 -0.180 0.556 0.606 0.680 0.679 0.910 0.561
Tackles: SD 0.598 0.216 0.542 0.575 0.381 0.336 0.573 0.265 0.435
Game 2: Goals: Mean 1 -0.497 0.882 0.973 -0.747 -0.956 0.852 -0.537 0.647 0.911
Shots/Header Shots: Mean 7 0.034 0.799 -0.047 0.128 0.462 0.635 0.201 0.675 0.540
Shots/Header Shots: SD 0.792 0.207 0.596 0.762 0.467 0.408 0.705 0.364 0.397
Game 3: Shots/Header Shots: Mean 11 -0.010 0.482 0.153 0.305 0.340 0.500 0.265 0.394 0.401
Shots/Header Shots: SD 0.602 0.500 0.550 0.522 0.623 0.422 0.530 0.582 0.428
Game 4: Goals: Mean 3 0.821 0.895 -0.443 0.987 0.978 -0.293 -0.985 0.978 -0.070
Goals: SD 0.137 0.099 0.130 0.007 0.022 0.425 0.004 0.023 0.455
Game 5: Goals: Mean 4 -0.131 0.903 0.356 0.293 0.601 0.130 0.458 0.740 0.298
Goals: SD 0.656 0.118 0.331 0.513 0.388 0.532 0.431 0.277 0.517

413
a) b)

c)
Figure 5. a) Stretch index along the pitch for the open play goal in game 2, with a large negative correlation coefficient: r = -0.956; b) team
length for the same goal, with a large positive correlation coefficient: r = 0.882; c) team width for a tackle in game 1, with a large negative
correlation coefficient (r = -0.913).

414
Therefore, looking across the five games and ten teams as a whole, we found some
evidence that attacks ending in a goal or a shot or header shot had more volatile, less
predictable coordination dynamics in terms of dispersion measures, but some
contrasting evidence in the main direction of play.

When looking at the mean values of correlation coefficients for the five games
individually, we found a few mean (across the game) negative correlations between
team dispersion measures (Table 4), but, with one exception, only for goals and shots
and header shots. It is noteworthy that only one negative correlation was in the x-
direction (along the pitch). This occurred for the one open play goal in game 2 (Figure 5
a), for which the attacking team stretch index along the pitch clearly increased as the
latter two-thirds of the attack unfolded while the defending team’s stretch index
increased. This pattern of the attacking team expanding while the defending team
contacted was not, however, supported for this goal by the correlation coefficients along
the pitch for the team length (Figure 5 b) or the Frobenius norm, so the evidence is
equivocal.

Only one game mean had a negative correlation for one of the two categories of
‘unsuccessful’ attacks: that for the team width for the 11 tackles in game 1; an example
of one of the tackles showing a negative correlation for this dispersion variable in Game
1 is shown in Figure 5 c.

Looking at the 305 individual open play attacks across five games, we certainly found
many incidences in which the defending team contracted while the expanding team
expanded; however, these were in a substantial minority for all four types of attack and
all dispersion measures (Table 5). The team surface areas showed a greater percentage
of attacks for goals (36%) and for shots and header shots (42%) for which the
correlation coefficients were negative than for tackles (23%) or other losses of
possession (24%). However, this trend was not nearly as marked, or even absent, for the
six measures of inter-player dispersion. Over all 305 attacks, only the team surface areas
and widths had negative correlation coefficients for more than a quarter of attacks. In
this context, it should be noted that the team length (and the team width) is a very
insensitive measure for the eleven-a-side game as it is the distance between only two
players.

415
Table 5. Summary of number (and %) of attacks across five games for which a negative Pearson product moment correlation coefficient
was found between the various measures of dispersion for attacking and defending teams. A negative correlation coefficient indicates a
pattern of one team (usually the defending team) contracting while the attacking team expanded. SA = surface area; SI = stretch index;
Frob = Frobenius norm; x = along pitch, y = across pitch.
Total
Five Games: Ten Teams Number SA SAx SAy SI SIx SIy Frob Frobx Froby
Goals 14 5 (36%) 1 (7%) 4 (28%) 4 (28%) 3 (21%) 5 (36%) 3 (21%) 1 (7%) 3 (21%)
Shots/Header Shots 50 21 (42%) 4 (8%) 21 (42%) 13 (26%) 10 (20%) 7 (14%) 12 (24%) 5 (10%) 11 (22%)
Tackles 26 6 (23%) 3 (12%) 10 (38%) 3 (12%) 3 (12%) 1 (4%) 4 (15%) 1 (4%) 5 (19%)
Other Losses of
Possession 215 52 (24%) 32 (15%) 69 (32%) 50 (23%) 40 (19%) 34 (16%) 40 (19%) 30 (14%) 25 (12%)
All Attacks 305 84 (28%) 42 (14%) 104 (34%) 70 (23%) 56 (18%) 47 (15%) 59 (19%) 37 (12%) 44 (14%)

Table 6. Number and percentages of attacks for each category across five games for which the defending team tended to become more
tightly bunched (SI, Six, Frob or Frobx decreasing) within a smaller area (SA decreasing) as the attack progressed over the whole attack
and over the last 5 s. SA = surface area; SI = stretch index; Frob = Frobenius norm; x = along pitch, y = across pitch.
Total such SA+SI SA+SI SA+SIx SA+SIx SA+Frob SA+Frob SA+Frobx SA+Frobx
Five Games Attacks Attack 5s Attack 5s Attack 5s Attack 5s
Goals 14 6 (43%) 7 (50%) 6 (43%) 5 (36%) 5 (36%) 6 (43%) 2 (14%) 2 (14%)
Shots/Header Shots 50 24 (48%) 16 (32%) 15 (30%) 10 (20%) 23 (46%) 13 (26%) 11 (22%) 13 (26%)
Both Successful Types 64 30 (47%) 23 (36%) 21 (33%) 15 (23%) 28 (44%) 19 (30%) 13 (20%) 15 (23%)
Tackles 26 7 (27%) 4 (15%) 7 (27%) 4 (15%) 7 (27%) 4 (15%) 6 (23%) 4 (15%)
Other Losses of Possession 215 84 (39%) 68 (32%) 78 (36%) 55 (26%) 72 (33%) 76 (35%) 66 (31%) 54 (25%)
Both Unsuccessful Types 241 91 (38%) 72 (30%) 85 (35%) 59 (24%) 79 (33%) 80 (33%) 72 (30%) 58 (24%)
All Attacks 305 121 (40%) 95 (31%) 106 (35%) 74 (24%) 107 (35%) 99 (32%) 85 (28%) 73 (24%)

416
Surface Area Stretch Index
1000 17

900 16
Defending Team Surface Area (square metres)

15

Defending Team Stretch Index (m)


800

14
700
13
600
12
500
11

400
10

300 9

200 8
1850 1855 1860 1865 1870 1875 1880 1885
Time (s)

a) b)

c)
Figure 6. Examples of open play attacks in which: a) defending team surface area and stretch index both decreased across the whole attack;
b) defending team surface area decreased but stretch index (here in the x-direction) increased; c) the pattern was too complex to be
represented adequately by decreasing or increasing trends.

417
The examples and results in the previous two paragraphs show that in a specific game,
and for individual attacks, we found coordination dynamics that differed from the mean
behaviour averaged across attacks and across games. However, we found insufficient
evidence to overturn our mean findings across the five games.

Table 6 shows that the pattern of the outfield players of the defending team tending to
become more tightly bunched (as expressed by the stretch index or Frobenius norm)
within a smaller team surface area as attacks unfolded occurred in only a minority of the
305 open play attacks that we studied. This was true over the entire course of the attacks
or over the last 5 s. The greatest percentage (40%) was found using a combination of the
surface area and radial stretch index across the whole duration of each attack and the
smallest using the surface area and either the stretch index or Frobenius norm along the
pitch for the last 5 s of each attack. Figure 6 (a) shows an open play attack in which both
the stretch index and surface area of the defensive team decreased across the whole of
the attack and Figure 6 (b) shows an attack in which the surface area increased but the
stretch index decreased.

It should be noted that many attacks (e.g. Figure 6 c) involved far too complex patterns
to be described adequately by such decreasing (or increasing) trends.

Considering our third question, we found little evidence that defenders tended to
become more tightly bunched (in terms of the Frobenius norm or stretch index) within a
smaller area as the attack proceeded when they tackled or when the attacking team
experienced another loss of possession than when the attacking team scored or made a
shot or header shot on goal (Table 6). This held true whether we looked at the trend
across the whole attack or across the last 5 s of the attack. The percentage of attacks for
which this bunching within a smaller area occurred varied with the measure of inter-
player distance, but showed no clear differences between successful and unsuccessful
attacks. For three of the combinations of dispersion measures for which the percentages
differed by more than 5%, this pattern was more evident for successful attacks than for
unsuccessful ones (Table 6), in contrast to our proposition.

4. Discussion

We have structured the discussion around the four questions we posed in the
Introduction, before adding some general comments and recommendations for future
research.

4.1 Are the Dynamics of Team Centroids Strongly Correlated in Open Play?
We found strong positive correlations between attacking and defending team centroids
for all four types of attack both along and across the pitch; they were stronger along the
pitch, which is the main direction of play. By and large, therefore, the team centroids
moved synchronously both along the pitch and across the pitch, the former showing a
stronger coupling of the teams’ coordination dynamics. The weaker correlation across
the pitch is not unexpected as the touchline boundaries represent relatively safe areas,
which naturally restrict time and space for the attacking team, while the defending team
does not have to migrate as closely with the opposition to nullify an attack. This finding

418
agrees with previous research (Yue at al., 2008: Frencken et al., 2011; Duarte et al.,
2012) and with what we might predict – the defending team’s movements follow those
of the attacking team and more so in the main direction of play. This finding presents
further evidence that multi-agent sport (or social) systems can be characterised as
dynamical systems, with player groupings being closely coupled, supporting the notion
of coordinative structures within team sports (Lames et al., 2010; Passos et al., 2011).

4.2 Are Critical Moments in Play (such as Goals, Shots on Goal and Tackles)
Preceded by a Decrease in Inter-team Centroid Distance or a Crossing of Team
Centroids?
No crossing of the centroids of the two teams along the pitch occurred for any of the 14
goals scored from open play, whereas for nine open play goals, the team centroids
crossed across the pitch. The absence of centroid convergence along the pitch before
goals were scored contrasts with the findings of Frencken et al. (2011) and Duarte et al.
(2012), but they studied small-sided games in contrast to the eleven-a-side games in this
study. In eleven-a-side games the attacking team typically ‘leaves’ several defenders to
cover their own half to reduce the risk of being exposed to a counter-attack. Therefore,
in such cases the team centroid is partly skewed away from the opponent’s goal,
reducing the possibility that the centroids may cross. In small-sided games (e.g. three
vs. three), there are distinctly different tactical patterns of behaviour imposed by the
specific task constraints; sub-units of the team are less likely to exist.

Only one crossing of the team centroids along the pitch occurred for the 50 shots or
header shots, in contrast to crossings of the team centroids across the pitch for 70% of
the shots and header shots. For tackles and other losses of possession, only three team
centroid crossings occurred, all away from the goal and two near the start of the attack,
again in contrast to crossings of the team centroids across the pitch in well over half of
these unsuccessful attacks. Clear converging patterns of the team centroids for all four
types of attack were the exception rather than the rule. We, therefore, found little
support for any general rule that team centroids converge along the pitch during any
kind of attack and hardly any at all for a crossing of team centroids in that direction. The
defending team in these five games seemed to move to ensure that its centroid was
nearer its goal than was that of the attacking team: they failed to achieve this in only 6
out of 305 open play attacks, less than 2%.

We found, therefore, little evidence to suggest that critical moments in play, such as
goals, shots on goal and tackles, are preceded by a decrease in the distance between the
team’s centroids or by a crossing of the centroids along the pitch.

4.3 Do Attacks Ending in a Defensive Tackle or a Turn-over in Possession Have


Characteristic Coordination Dynamics?
We postulated, for example, that the defending team’s centroid might be strongly
correlated with that of the attacking team. We also suggested that defenders might tend
to become more tightly bunched (low Frobenius norm and stretch index) within a
smaller area (low team surface area) as such an unsuccessful attack develops.

419
Our results showed no evidence of a stronger correlation between the two team
centroids for attacks ending in a defensive tackle or other loss of possession than for
attacks ending in a goal, shot or header shot.

In terms of the defending team becoming more tightly bunched relative to the attacking
team within a smaller area, we found negative correlation coefficients for the teams’
surface areas, which would support that assertion for 36% of goals and for 42% of shots
and header shots compared with only 23% for tackles and 24% for other losses of
possession. In other words, the relative bunching of the defending team was more
marked for successful than for unsuccessful attacks, in contrast to our proposition.
There were no obvious differences between successful and unsuccessful attacks for the
bunching of the defending team relative to the attacking team for any measure of inter-
player dispersion.

When considering only the defending team, we found little evidence that defenders
tended to become more tightly bunched (in terms of the Frobenius norm or stretch
index) within a smaller area as the attack proceeded when they tackled or when the
attacking team experienced another loss of possession than when the attacking team
scored or made a shot or header shot on goal. This held true whether we looked at the
trend across the whole attack or across the last 5 s of the attack. For three of the
combinations of dispersion measures for which the percentages differed by more than
5%, this pattern was more evident for successful attacks than for unsuccessful ones, in
contrast to our proposition.

4.4 Do Attacks ending in a Goal, or a Shot or Header Shot have more Volatile, less
Predictable Coordination Dynamics?
As an example, we suggested a weak coupling between teams’ centroids and dispersion
measures for these two types of successful attacks. However, our results showed that the
two successful attack categories did not show less stable coordination dynamics, in the
form of a weaker coupling (smaller correlation coefficient) between team centroids or
any of the nine dispersion measure that we used, than the two unsuccessful attack
categories. It may well be the case that the centroid and dispersion measures for the
whole team are insufficiently sensitive to reveal such coordination dynamics and that a
different approach, based on smaller sets of players, would provide a more sensitive
measure.

4.5 General Comments


The outcome that had been postulated by Frencken et al. (2011) and reported, by visual
inspection of graphs, by Moura et al. (2012) of one team ‘expanding’ while the other
team ‘contracted’ was not supported at all by the mean values across the four attacking
categories for all ten teams. The idea that the defending team contracted while the
attacking team expanded (Moura et al., 2012) was not supported by these mean results.
Indeed, all mean correlation coefficients for the dispersion measures were positive. The
‘expansion-contraction’ pattern was apparent for only 28% of the attacks across the five
games for surface area and for less that 25% of the attacks for any of the measures of
inter-player dispersion.

420
Our positive correlations for the Frobenius norms of the two teams are in stark contrast
to the results of Moura et al. (2012) of a negative visual correlation for the radial
Frobenius norm. It should be noted that Figure 3 in Moura et al. (2012) shows the
variation of surface are and Frobenius norm over a ten minute period. This would
obscure how the team dispersions co-vary during individual attacks and would be an
average over a period in which the coordination dynamics between the two teams would
have changed many times. Furthermore, the main support for the assertion of Moura et
al. (2012) that the expanding team expands and the defending team contracts was based
on median values for the surface area and Frobenius norm over all attacking and
defending moves by each team across an entire game. These median values tell us little,
if anything, about the coordination dynamics of the two teams. Coordination is a
process that evolves with time and cannot, therefore, be adequately described by median
values.

4.6 Recommendations for Future Research


By and large, our results, for five games from the group stages of the European
Champions League did not support the propositions about the coordination dynamics
between elite European soccer teams that we postulated in terms of our four questions
discussed above. We see no likelihood of a different picture emerging from simply
studying more games. Instead we propose one of two approaches for relevant further
research, which we intend to pursue.

First, in high level, eleven-a-side soccer games the team centroid dynamics and
associated dispersion measures are not sensitive enough to signify critical events such as
goals or a turn-over in possession. Unlike in small-sided games, the dynamics of smaller
sub-sets of players need to be analysed in future research in eleven-a-side soccer to
identify whether such events can be predicted from the coordination dynamics of
players. An interesting topic for future work would be to establish which combinations
of players best characterise the coordination dynamics of soccer teams; for example,
would any smaller groupings be best considered as a fixed number, such as the five
players from each team nearest the ball, or those within a fixed area around the ball,
which moves with the ball? Furthermore, how would the intra- and inter-unit variability
for these specific groupings differ between attacking and defending teams?

Secondly, it should also be possible to analyse multi-dimensional coordination of


groups of more than two players, for example, all outfield players in a team, using self-
organising maps (SOMs, a type of artificial neural network) as reviewed by Dutt-
Mazumder et al. (2011) and used by, for example, Lamb et al. (2011) to study a
different type of multi-dimensional coordination, that between the multiple joints of the
body. When addressing multi-dimensional coordination between players, we would
need to establish what would be the best inputs to a self-organising map (SOM) and for
how many and what combinations of players. For example, we might simply use player
trajectories along and across the pitch or the various types of attack. Alternatively, we
could use players trajectories and velocities along and across the pitch (in a different
context, Bartlett et al., 2012, reported more easily interpretable results in terms of SOM
output maps and attractor diagrams using angle and angular velocity data in all three
cardinal planes during treadmill locomotion than using just angles or just sagittal plane
data). Lastly, we might use some inter-player measure, such as the inter-player distances

421
used in the calculations of the Frobenius norm or the stretch index. We recommend that
future research into team coordination dynamics in eleven-a-side soccer should explore
the use of smaller groupings of players within a team and the use of self-organising
maps.

Finally, we cannot recommend the future use of the team length and width when
studying all outfield players in an eleven-a-side game, as they measure distances
between only two players. However, the team surface area seems to us useful, even
though its calculation rarely, if ever, involves all outfield players. It expresses a
different concept to the measures of inter-player distances, the stretch index and the
Frobenius norm. Nothing in this study demonstrated substantial differences between
these latter two measures of team, or player, dispersion, presumably because both
include the distances between every possible pairing of players in their calculation. The
stretch index seems to us slightly preferable to the Frobenius norm as the latter is based
on the squared distances between players, and is, therefore, more sensitive to outliers.

5. Conclusions

We found that the team centroids moved synchronously both along and across the pitch,
the former showing a stronger coupling of the teams’ coordination dynamics, as
expected. No crossing of the centroids of the two teams along the pitch occurred for any
of the 14 goals scored from open play; and only six for all 305 open play attacks. We
found little support for any general rule that team centroids converge along the pitch
during critical moments in play, such as goals, shots on goal and tackles. Our results,
based on the team centroids and dispersions in eleven-a-side soccer, did not reveal
different coordination dynamics for attacks ending in a defensive tackle or a turn-over
in possession from those ending in a goal, shot or header shot; nor did attacks ending in
a goal, or a shot or header shot have more volatile, less predictable coordination
dynamics than unsuccessful attacks.

6. Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the support of Prozone Sports Ltd through their
providing player trajectories and event coding for the games included in this study.

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