J Sport Sci Med
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The present study aimed to analyze the water polo matches of the men's World Championships, comparing technical and tactical aspects of winning and losing teams, during closed (≤ 3 goals of margin of victory at the end of the 4(th) quarter; winning, W; losing, L) and unbalanced (>3 goals; winning, MW; losing, ML) games. Therefore, 42 of the 48 (6 were draw at end of the 4(th) quarter) matches were considered. According to each game situation (i.e., even, counterattack, power-play, transition), a notational analysis was performed in relation to the following aspects: occurrence of actions, action outcome, execution and origin of shots, and mean duration. ⋯ Closed matches are mainly characterized by a high occurrence of the opponent's exclusion fouls to perform the power-play actions. For the unbalanced matches, a divergent grade of defensive skills between teams has been highlighted. Coaches can improve their training, considering the opponent's exclusion fouls to perform the power-play actions towards a closed match, and caring the defensive skills of each game situation towards an unbalanced match.
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The specific aim of this study was to examine whether motivational climate, perceived physical competence, and exercise motivation predict enjoyment in school physical education within the same sample of adolescents across three years of secondary school. A sample of 639 students (girls = 296, boys = 343) aged between 13- to 15-years at the commencement of the study completed the Intrinsic Motivation Climate in Physical Education Questionnaire, Physical Self-Perception Profile, Physical Education Motivation Scale, and Physical Education Enjoyment Scale. Results derived from path analyses indicated that task-involving motivational climate predicted enjoyment in physical education via perceived physical competence and intrinsic motivation in both girls and boys. ⋯ Ego-involving climate did not fit either the data for the girls or boys, as PE lessons based on ego-involving motivational climate did not significantly influence on the level of PE enjoyment. The results of the current study and previous practical findings support task-involving teaching methods to promote adolescent's PE enjoyment through secondary school years. School PE could be most effective if based on task-involving motivational climate, in which the main objective is increasing students' perceived physical competence, intrinsic motivation, and enjoyment.
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Progression of a team's performance is a key issue in competitive sport, but there appears to have been no published research on team progression for periods longer than a season. In this study we report the game-score progression of three teams of a youth talent-development academy over five seasons using a novel analytic approach based on generalised mixed modelling. The teams consisted of players born in 1991, 1992 and 1993; they played totals of 115, 107 and 122 games in Asia and Europe between 2005 and 2010 against teams differing in age by up to 3 years. ⋯ Key pointsA generalized linear mixed model is the approach for tracking game scores, key performance indicators or other measures of performance based on counts in sports where changes within and/or between games/seasons have to be considered. Game scores in soccer could be useful to track performance progression of teams, but hundreds of games are needed. Fewer games will be needed for tracking performance represented by counts with high scores, such as game scores in rugby or key performance indicators based on frequent events or player actions in any team sport.