Informational Constraints on Performance in Futsal (Indoor Football): a New Method to Analyse Team Sports

This book explains how ecological dynamics may be a reliable framework to analyse performance in the team sport of futsal, by showing how players perform by using information from the locations of their opponents, teammates, the goal and the ball. Video analysis of futsal international matches show in-phase patterns of coordination emerging between the attackers? and defenders? angles and distances to the goal. To break symmetry with their opponents and create an opportunity to score, attackers promote a misalignment in the defenders position in between the ball carrier and the goal, while maintaining high values of interpersonal distance. In addition, goals occur when ball carriers shot the ball in a specific direction and with a specific velocity that require high displacement velocities of the defender and the goalkeeper to intercept the ball. Finally, using agent-based models we simulate how the decision-making of shooting at goal is influenced by individual and task constraints. Implications of this research are also considered for practice task designs and sport development programs.