Luca Oppici; Derek Panchuk; Fabio R. Serpiello; and Damian Farrow
The Big Idea
If this study does nothing else, it should reinforce a couple of useful ideas hovering over our sporting life. First, there is inherent relevance for the power of field research to inform our sports practices. Second, we are learning that our sporting practices, where possible, need to be as game-specific as we can make them.
This study is field-based in both its design and technical sophistication; it is not simulation, but fact-based and driven. By way of it we get a glimpse of why we need to improve the relevancy of our research contributions. Here we are seeing the results of a study in situ. Its novelty is in its effort to study futsal and soccer play as they are naturally given. For example, most studies or teachings of ball passing in futsal or soccer begin with the ball already positioned at the player’s feet. Apparently to researcher and coach alike, the ball got there by an immaculate reception of sorts.
But in this study, its simple and novel decision is to recognize that passing entails the reception of the ball first. Indeed, it is hard to imagine a pass ever happening without a reception—except in the minds of those who choose simulations over game-based learnings. So, what we have here is a research study based on a very little idea that forms the basis of its Big Idea, namely that the passing skills of elite youth players of futsal and soccer are inherently defined by the specific perceptual task constraints of each sport.
Takeaways
- This study looks at the long-term impact of different task constraints on perceptual skill.
- Long-term practice was defined by the elite youth futsal (N=24) and soccer players (N=24) who each averaged over 1,000 practice hours and 400 competitive games over seven years.
- The study focused on the common skill of passing to determine what, if any differences there were between long-term futsal and soccer perceptual skills as determined by tracking the attention orientation of the players within each sport as they played six games with randomly selected 6 vs. 6 teams.
- The participant’s attention orientation was collected using a scene camera of a mobile eye tracking system.
- The hypotheses were: 1) that the different task constraints of the two sports would, over time, shape different perceptual ball passing skills; and 2) that the higher number of players on the soccer pitch would promote higher frequency of scanning behavior during games.
- These suspicions were based on the differences between task constraints in futsal and soccer, including pitch size, number of players, individual playing areas, ball circumference, ball weight, height of ball first bounce, surface, and rules.
- The analysis of the field-based study data did indeed show that futsal players had higher scanning behavior during ball reception and control (40% more ball-player attention alternations), while soccer players mainly scanned the environment when not in ball possession (25% more attention alternations).
- The conclusion was that the higher game intensity, higher opponent pressure, an easier-to-handle ball, and a lower number of players in futsal allowed futsal players to acquire information on other players’ behavior just prior to and during ball control. In soccer, on the other hand, larger team size, lower game intensity, and unpredictable ball behavior, led soccer players to scan the environment when not in possession of the ball.
- Therefore, the behavioral differences found between long-term futsal and soccer players were elicited by the extensive domain-specific practice with differing task constraints.
The Research
For 30 years the motor development research literature reflects preoccupation with what is called a constraints-led perspective. This means that in goal-directed activities we humans largely self-organize interacting constraints. More plainly, we do certain things to enable successful actions in the face of contextual organismic, environmental, and task challenges facing us.
In sports, skilled performance task constraints are the primary constraints. Task constraints include such things as rules, units of time, spatial dimensions, and equipment. Sports such as futsal and soccer, for example, are largely distinguished by differences in task constraints required for play. Additionally, playing these sports well or badly can be improved or diminished depending on how coaches manipulate team practice constraints, whether wisely or foolishly.
Two contextual differences were selected in this study to promote skill acquisition. First, these researchers wanted to learn more about the development of perceptual processes grounding sports performance. Second, since previous research only studied acute (short-term) changes of task constraints on perceptual skills, this research was designed explore the long-term impact of practice with different task constraints.
Design of the study
Overall, the study was undertaken to better inform our understanding of the ways in which athletes learn to attend to useful perceptual information in different domains over time. The design was based on the influence of extensive player practice (more than 1,000 hours of structured practice) in two sports: futsal and soccer.
What makes this comparison possible is the similarity of the main skill in both sports: passing. Futsal and soccer differ in: pitch size; number of players; individual playing area; ball circumference, weight, and height of first bounce; surface; and rules. Despite these differences, the complex skill of passing the ball under pressure is central to the flow of the game. Players in both sports must balance their attention between identifying the context of both intercepting the ball and the behavior of the surrounding players. Visual attention and shifting gaze fashions the play of players and teams alike. But, even though the basic skill is the same, little is known about how extended exposure to the differing task constraints of the two sports influences actual player perceptual skills.
The researchers hypothesized that despite performing similar skills, the sport-specific constraints (between futsal and soccer) would promote attunement to different information during the execution of the pass.
Here’s what they did. First, they recruited 24 elite youth (average age 14) futsal players, and 24 elite soccer players (average age also 14). The two groups averaged about seven years of experience in their respective sports. Over time, these players averaged three 90-minute practice sessions per week, for 40 weeks a year, resulting in 1,220 and 1,260 hours of futsal and structured soccer practice respectively. In addition, these select players participated in approximately 400 competitive games over their youth careers. Players who had trained in the “other” sport were excluded from the study. The final sample size was 17 futsal players and 20 soccer players.
The experimental task
The experimental task for these two groups was a 5 vs. 5 (plus goalkeeper) modified game. To allow for between-sport comparisons the games format was kept common: the aim (scoring goals); and the rules—including no offside rule.
The domain-specific game of futsal: 1) was performed with a FIFA quality-approved futsal ball; and 2) a wooden pitch of 24m X 15m to correspond to an individual playing area of 36m2, the most common player density on futsal matches. The soccer task was performed: 1) with a FIFA quality approved soccer ball; and 2) on a synthetic-grass pitch of 24m x 36m corresponding to an individual playing area of 86m2, also the most common density of players in soccer matches.
A one-week familiarization session of a shortened version of the experimental task was conducted in the players’ regular training environment, whether futsal or soccer. The actual experimental session included six games, five minutes in duration, with a five-minute recovery break between games. A scene camera of a mobile eye tracking system (Mobile Eye) was worn by two players to collect the players’ attention orientation. An external camera was placed in one corner of the respective pitches. This determination meant that each player wore the scene camera during one game. The players were randomly divided into two teams of six players. The orientation of attention was classified as either ball-directed or player-directed.
The games were divided into three phases: reception, control, and team. This just means that the camera data was analyzed as follows: 1) reception was from the time a ball left a teammate’s foot to the participant’s first touch; 2) controlcaptured the time in which a participant had possession of the ball, from the first touch to the release of the pass; and 3) the team phases was the overall time the participant’s team had possession of the ball, minus the previous two phases.
As you would imagine, the analysis of the both the attention orientation eye movements and the context of the game dynamics (relative intensity determined by the number of passes per minute) were complicated. But between reliable game coding and thorough statistical analysis, these researchers could answer the question they were asking within the parameters of the study design.
Results and practical implications
Remember that these researchers wanted to learn how extensive practice with domain (sport)-specific task constraints influenced perceptual skills associated with passing skills.
They guessed that futsal-specific constraints (e.g. high game intensity, ball characteristics, playing surface, and so on) would promote an orientation of attention toward behavior of the players around them and to force quick decisions. They believed soccer players, on the other hand, would alternate their attention toward ball players less frequently, mainly attending to the ball when performing their first touch thereby encouraging a ball-directed orientation of attention.
They also guessed that the higher number of players on a soccer pitch would promote higher frequency scanning behavior during the team phase. They would spend more time orienting their attention toward players, alternating their attention more frequently between the ball and other players than futsal players during the team phase.
The findings show that “each group developed unique perceptual strategies to gather information about the ball and other players at different phases during the games.” The smaller individual playing area, and therefore shorter reception time and higher technical intensity in futsal, resulted in a higher game intensity in that sport. In other words, the unique constraint demands of each sport honed unique perceptual skills.
The outcomes of this research study provide evidence of the remarkable long-term relationship impact of task constraints on motor skills. Individual players’ self-organization of these interacting constraints produced identifiable patterns of coordination.
From a practical standpoint, this study aligns with many others to emphasize the impact—for better and worse—on how manipulating task constraints can modify playing preferences and habits. Such task constraints include rules and equipment. By changing-up such constraints we can help players find their preferred patterns of coordination. For example, using the futsal ball on a hard surface may develop automaticity in various kicking skills transferrable to soccer. This constraint change has in other research shown to be useful in improving ball juggling skills.
Or, changing up the number of players in practices can be manipulated to constrain the players’ visual search for enhanced environmental information. For example, increasing the number of players in either sport’s practices can promote higher scanning behavior by way of more frequent attention switches. Or, the individual playing area can be manipulated to modify opponent pressure when performing passes. This is turn encourages players to search for decision-making information in key situations; high opponent pressure can be used to teach early and quick perception of changes in the playing environment.
All in all, this study provides new and novel insights regarding the long-term effects of practicing with specific task constraints, such as those found in futsal passing compared to passing in soccer. And that’s the Big Idea.
