Meijden, D. van der (David) (2020) Inside the defense: Defensive strategies to prevent and defend the utilization of the zone between the defensive and midfield lines. thesis, Sport Sciences.
Full text available on request.Abstract
The vast amount of position and event data generated from matches enables sport scientists, data scientists and performance analysts to conduct more advanced analyses of physical and tactical performance. With this data, previous research has shown the potential for attacking success within the zone between the midfield and defensive lines, called “zone 14”. However, studies investigating the use of different pitch zones during attacking sequences mostly used rather simple measures for success. Therefore, a relatively new method, the dangerousity index, was applied to quantify success on a continuous scale using the field position and pressure exerted by the defense. Furthermore, it is not yet investigated how to properly defend “zone 14”. This study investigates if “zone 14” is highly utilized within a soccer game, if attacks utilizing “zone 14” are more successful, and how a defensive team may adapt to minimize the attacking success. Position and event data of Dutch Eredivisie matches were analyzed using Python. For each possession the dangerousity index for receptions and shots, the average surface area, length per width ratio, similarity of the shape of “zone 14” and distance between attackers within “zone 14” and the defenders were calculated. Comparisons of success between possessions utilizing and not utilizing “zone 14” and defensive strategies between successful and non-successful possession were made. Additionally, a regression model was performed to predict attacking success based on the defensive strategies. Possessions utilizing “zone 14” comprised around 30% of the total possessions and showed a higher probability to be successful. A team defending a successful possession using “zone 14” had a smaller surface area, a smaller length per width ratio, a shorter distance between the attacker and defender and a greater similarity of the shape. The logistic regression model predicted a reception in the final third using these defensive variables with a reasonable accuracy of 68%, a precision of 79% and had an AUC score of 75%. These results indicate that the importance of “zone 14” should be emphasized in professional football. In conclusion, this study showed that a possession utilizing “zone 14” had a higher chance of success. Additionally, a reception in the final third can reasonably be predicted with a logistic regression model using the defensive strategy variables. Keywords: football; position data; tactical analysis; zone 14; attacking success; defensive strategies
| Item Type: | Thesis (UNSPECIFIED) |
|---|---|
| Supervisor name: | Kempe, dr. M. and Lemmink, prof. dr. K.A.P.M. and Frencken, dr. W.G.P. and Goes, F.R. |
| Faculty: | Medical Sciences |
| Date Deposited: | 20 May 2022 09:18 |
| Last Modified: | 20 May 2022 09:18 |
| URI: | https://umcg.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/3367 |
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