INDIVIDUAL + TEAMMATE EFFECTS ON SMALL SIDED GAMES

This hot-off-the-presses study looks at quantifying the effects of individual players and teammates on small-sided games through repeated-game observations.

Does 1 or a group of players drive a team's success or do all players need to contribute to become a winning team?

Find out below.

• In the study 31 people participated in 3v3 soccer matches
• Teammate combinations explained 20 – 23% of team success but individual players only 11 – 12% with the kicker there being that was substantial residue variance of 64 – 69% which indicates that performance depends on multiple factors beyond those 2 alone
• Scouting/analytics should better account for the emergent properties of team interactions when evaluating players
• Football outcomes often emerge from chains of events involving multiple players making it statistically complex to isolate individual impact
• 2 players of the same skill set may underperform if they occupy the same spaces and limit each other’s opportunities
• Collective team performance arises from the interpersonal interactions between players, with interaction quality differentiating unsuccessful and successful outcomes
• In football, team tactics are governed by complex processes resulting from networks of interdependent parameters, suggesting that performance emerges from the coordination patterns between specific player combinations and not solely from isolated individual abilities
• Ecological dynamics predicts that a player’s apparent quality may be significantly shaped by environmental context (teammates, tactical roles, opposition strength)
• By repeatedly shifting team configurations in small-sided games, we isolate the relative effects of individual players and their teammates on overall performance
• The study also looked at if unopposed player skill levels, tested and quantified pre-study, were maintained in games
• The highest male goal scorer (32 goals) had an individual player effect of -.6 suggesting their offensive production was accompanied by negative defensive contributions or occurred disproportionately in matches their team lost
• The highest female goal scorer (38) had an individual player effect of +1.34 indicating more consistent alignment between offensive/defensive production and overall team contribution
• The correlation of unopposed skill level and individual player effects during competition was weak for both genders
• Team performance was maximised when players with different skill skillsets were combined, highlighting the importance of complementary roles in driving team success
• In AFL the distribution of individual contributions within teams significantly affects match outcomes, with more evenly distributed goal-scoring patterns associated with greater success suggesting team effectiveness emerges not just from individual capabilities but from how those capabilities are distributed/coordinated within the group
• Team effectiveness depends not only on the competencies of individual members but also on their ability to coordinate, communicate and adapt to dynamic situations
• This study only used 3v3 but in 11v11 results may not fully transfer where positional roles/formations introduce additional layers of interdependence