Informational constraints shape emergent functional behaviours during performance of interceptive actions in team sports

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Abstract

Objectives

This study aimed to explain how defenders intercept the trajectory of a passing ball by understanding how they coupled their actions to critical information sources in a competitive performance setting in team sports.

Design

Time series data on movement displacements of fifteen senior male futsal performers were recorded and digitized during nine competitive futsal games.

Method

Performance was recorded by a digital camera and digitized with TACTO software. The spatial–temporal dynamics of performers during ten intercepted and ten non-intercepted passes were compared. Time to ball interception was calculated by the difference between the time of each defender to an interception point in ball trajectory and the time of the ball’s arrival at the same interception point. Initial distances between defenders and ball and velocity data of defenders and ball over time were also recorded.

Results

Time to ball interception revealed positive values when passes were not intercepted, and negative to zero values when passes were intercepted. At the moment of pass initiation defenders’ distances to the ball constrained their possibilities for successful interception. Analysis of defenders’ adaptations to the environment revealed that continuous changes in the defenders’ velocities constrained their success of the interception.

Conclusions

Intercepted passes seemed to be influenced by the continuous regulation of a defender’s velocity relative to the ball’s trajectory. Time to ball interception is a variable that captured the emergent functional behaviours of players attempting to intercept the trajectory of a pass in the team sport of futsal.

Highlights

► We examined information–movement couplings that underline decision-making in team sports. ► We proposed the variable time to ball intersection to capture decision-making. ► Initial performance conditions constrained successful actions. ► The variable time to ball interception captured the relational behaviour of players. ► Players use spatial–temporal information from game environment to make decisions.

Section snippets

Participants

Fifteen Portuguese male senior (M = 23.25, SD = 1.96 years) performers from the National Futsal University team squad participated in this study. All participants gave prior informed consent and the experimental protocol was approved by the local university institution’s ethics guidelines.

Task and procedures

Futsal is a five a side indoor soccer game that is played on a court of 40 m length by 20 m width. During performance the main goal of each team is to win a game by scoring more goals than the opposition. In

Time to ball interception (TBI)

Analysis of TBI1 data over time revealed no significant differences between intercepted and non-intercepted passes (p > .05) with high levels of variability for both conditions over time and a convergence to positive values at the end of the trials. This finding indicates that D1 never intercepted the ball. However, the variability observed over time for both conditions revealed that, according to initial conditions and the ball’s trajectory, D1 did try to continuously promote a favourable

Discussion

In the present study we examined how spatial–temporal information directly available within the performance environment guides perceptual-motor behaviour of players when intercepting a ball in team games. For this purpose, we studied functional behaviours of performers attempting to intercept the trajectory of a passing ball in futsal. In agreement with our hypothesis, the variable ‘time to ball interception’ captured how the interdependent relationships of information and movement might

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a financial grant from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (SFRH/BD/36225/2007) awarded to the first author.

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