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Faculty of Medical Sciences

The search for superior soccer actions: An investigation of the influence of Visual Exploratory Behaviour on the subsequent soccer actions

Aken, N. van (Nick) (2017) The search for superior soccer actions: An investigation of the influence of Visual Exploratory Behaviour on the subsequent soccer actions. thesis, Sport Sciences.

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Abstract

In soccer, perceptual and technical skills have been shown to be useful for distinguishing successful and unsuccessful players. In order to further examine these skills, this research has attempted to gain more insight in the influence of Visual Exploratory Behaviour (VEB) on the subsequent soccer actions. An official soccer match between two Dutch professional under-17 teams was filmed. The VEB in the last two seconds before ball possession of a player and his soccer actions on the ball were coded. Positive, non-significant, relations were found between the number of fixations and the subsequent soccer actions. More specifically, after performing more fixations, the first touches of the players were directed more forward and less backward, whereas the percentage successful first touches remained the same. The direction of the passes was comparable for a low or high number of fixations, but performing more fixations seems to result in a higher pass completion. These results indicate the importance of VEB in soccer. Future research is needed to establish the trends found in the present study, to examine the trainability of VEB and the influence of VEB on soccer actions without the ball.

Item Type: Thesis (UNSPECIFIED)
Supervisor name: Zaal, dr. ir. F.T.J.M. and Norel, J. van
Faculty: Medical Sciences
Date Deposited: 04 May 2022 08:42
Last Modified: 04 May 2022 08:42
URI: https://umcg.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/3216

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