THE UTILISATION OF TEAM GAME-RELATED STATISTICS AND TRAINING LOAD INDICATORS IN FOOTBALL.

With the interpretation of football (soccer) performance evolving constantly, the list of technical and physical measures collected by strength and conditioning coaches from matches is becoming immense. For coaches to further understand the complex dynamic of team performance, this poses the challenge of selecting the most relevant technical and physical indicators in football. The following review explores the common team game-related statistics utilised in football and training load indicators frequently collected alongside them. This review also aims to identify the most useful gamerelated statistics and training load indicators that strength and conditioning practitioners should use in football. The PRISMA guidelines were used to report this review. Databases were searched using key terms related to football, training load, and game-related statistics. Articles were only included for the review if they were peer-reviewed, published in English, utilised football athletes as participants, analysed team performance through notational analysis, and utilised methods for monitoring training loads during the study. From the studies included for the review (n = 20), the common game-related statistics observed were tackles, passes, dribbles, shots, interceptions, successful passes. Common training load indicators collected alongside these statistics include total distance covered, total distance covered per speed zone, session rating of perceived exertion, and percentage of maximal heart rate. Although that these common game-related statistics were shown to be less relevant compared to more complex and dynamic statistics (percentage of possession in final third, etc) collected by performance analysts, these statistics provide strength and conditioning practitioners with an excellent starting point to what is utilised to define team technical performance in football. Investigations have yet to demonstrate any relationships between team technical performance and training load indicators. ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR