A Fascinating Piece of Research and Analysis on Futsal and Futsal Players At the Elite and Sub Elite Levels In Australia

Capital Football Futsal League Manager forwarded an excellent piece of research recently undertaken by Sera Dogramaci, who advises that:

"A few years ago I conducted a study on the match demands of futsal in Australia as part of my Honours year at University. This study has now been published as a journal article, which I have attached for you to use and distribute to futsal coaches/players across ACT. I also submitted my doctoral thesis this year which is currently being marked by my examiners. My PhD study included a comparison of the match demands of Brazilian, Spanish and Australian futsal players."

Outstanding work! Should be more of it! Makes you think! Very generous of the author to share her work with the football and futsal community. Should be more of that as well!

The following is the Abstract of the article referred to by Sera and published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 2010 National Strength and Conditioning Association

TIME-MOTION ANALYSIS OF INTERNATIONAL AND NATIONAL LEVEL FUTSAL
SERA N. DOGRAMACI, MARK L. WATSFORD, AND ARON J. MURPHY
School of Leisure, Sport and Tourism, University of Technology, Sydney, Kuring-Gai Campus, Lindfield, New South Wales,Australia

ABSTRACT


Dogramaci, SN, Watsford, ML, and Murphy, AJ. Time-motion analysis of international and national level futsal. J Strength Cond Res 24(x): 000–000, 2010—Futsal is the Fe´de´ ration de Internationale Football Association’s officially recognized five-a- side indoor soccer, which although increasing in popularity worldwide, lacks the Australian or other English language research necessary to enable the growth of the sport. The purpose of this study was to establish a comprehensive overview of the demands of futsal by a time-motion analysis on 8 Australian National Team players and 10 State League Team players over 4 futsal matches. The study analyzed 6 locomotor activity categories, focusing on total distance covered, total duration of activities, total frequency of activities, effort distance, and effort duration. The national team covered a 42% greater overall distance than the state league team. In terms of relative data normalized for match duration, only the standing duration value was significantly different between the teams. Furthermore, futsal players of elite and subelite level in Australia perform a change in activity every 8–9 seconds on the court, and the national team athletes attained a higher, yet nonsignificant, average match-play velocity. This may be because of the national futsal athletes participating in an extended game duration, potentially suggesting that higher levels of competition facilitate a higher intensity of match play and greater physiological demands on individual players. Apart from the differences in timing structure and overall metabolic work, there was no real difference between the levels of competition within the Australian futsal analysis, although at higher levels of competition, there may be a need for more recovery because of the elevated intensity of the match. When comparing the data with other countries, however, Australian futsal players produce less distance and duration than Spanish futsal players.

KEY WORDS indoor soccer, effort profile, team sport performance, intermittent exercise



Extract from the article, Section titled "Introduction" is as follows:

..."The purpose of this study was to establish a comprehensive overview of the demands of futsal by quantifying and comparingthe activity patterns of subelite and elite level Australian futsal athletes during match play. A time-motion analysis of rugby league demonstrated that differences exist among physical performance characteristics of semielite and elite athletes (13). With no national futsal league currently being played in Australia, the New South Wales Premier League is the highest level of futsal competition, with several players participating in the competition also being members of the Australian National Team. Of the available research, no previous futsal study has conducted a time-motion study comparing different levels of competition. This study, therefore, has the potential to determine the differences between the 2 levels of competition in futsal, enabling training programs to be designed targeting specific areas of physical performance. It should be noted that this study assessed movement patterns of futsal athletes, and although there may have been differences between match skills such as passing success, these were not examined."