Exploring a holistic training program on tactical behavior and psychological components of elite soccer players throughout competition season: a pilot study.

This study aimed to assess the effects of a training program, considering an ecological/holistic perspective, on both tactical behavior (i.e., principles of play; PP) and psychological aspects (i.e., emotional, and cognitive components) in elite soccer teams consisting of players from the U23 and U21 age groups. The participants were 46 players from the under U-23 and U-21 teams from the same club and the first division of Argentina. A quasi-experimental design was examined after five weeks of intervention through integrated training tasks, where psychological factors were used for the development of the tactical principles of the game. Two evaluations of the improvement of game principles were performed before and after the intervention. The results showed significant changes and differences in both teams concerning the PP during the post-intervention period. Specifically, the results show significant group-by-time interactions with an increase in the percentage of tactical actions and behaviors performed during the competitions in two game principles analyzed in both teams. There were significant in the group-by-time interactions for PP 3 (i.e., the first option to pass forward; p ≤ 0.001, F = 58.96, ηp2 = 0.88) and also, significant changes were in PP 4 (i.e., immediate pressure when losing the ball) through the main effect of time (p ≤ 0.001, F = 105.41, ηp2 = 0.93) and group by time interactions (p = 0.002, F = 20.08, ηp2 = 0.72). In both groups, there were significant changes in post hoc analysis (PP3: U21: p = 0.039 vs. U23: p ≤ 0.001) and (PP4: U21: p = 0.006 vs. U23: p = 0.001). It seems the strategies and constraints used, tactical components, and integrated into the psychological aspects during specific soccer training tasks can help improve the tactical behaviors of both teams in a competition associated with the PP of a soccer team.

An intervention program based on team building during tactical training tasks to improve team functioning.

The study aimed to analyze the effects of an intervention program based on team building developed in technical-tactical training tasks in football. Specifically, it examined the benefits of the intervention in variables related to the conceptual model of team building: role clarity, team identification, intra-team communication, cohesion, intra-group conflict, commitment to the team, inside sacrifice, transactive memory systems, collective efficacy, and perceived performance. The participants were 51 young elite footballers divided into an experimental group (n = 27) and a control group (n = 24). The methodological design was quasi-experimental with a duration of 8 weeks. The data were collected three times: pretest, posttest, and follow-up. The results showed differences favoring the experimental group compared to the control group after the implementation of the intervention program in the following variables: team identification (p < 0.001), role clarity (p < 0.001), intra-team communication (p < 0.001; except distinctiveness), group cohesion (p < 0.05), social conflict (p = 0.001), commitment to the team (p < 0.001), inside sacrifice (p < 0.001), transactive memory systems (p < 0.01; except coordination), collective efficacy (p = 0.02) and team performance (p = 0.001). Consequently, the application of team-building strategies incorporated into specific technical-tactical training tasks in football seems to improve group dynamics in sports teams.

Are Teams Whose Players Are More Committed To the Team More Resilient? the Role of Intra-Group Conflict.

The study aimed to analyze the relationship between commitment to the team and team resilience factors (characteristics of resilience and vulnerability under pressure), and to examine whether the task and social intra-group conflict act as mediators between commitment to the team and team resilience factors. One hundred seventy (170) male soccer players (16-38 years; M = 18.35; SD = 4.72) of the national teams of Argentina, Costa Rica, and Mexico participated in the study. The path analytic model was used to test mediating pathways. First, the results revealed that commitment to the team was positively related to characteristics of resilience and negatively to vulnerability under pressure. Second, bootstrap mediation analysis showed that athletes' perceptions of the task and social intra-group conflict mediated the association between their perception of commitment to the team and team resilience factors. Findings provide initial evidence for a link between commitment to the team and team resilience in national teams and also suggest that intra-group conflict can improve the association between commitment to the team and team resilience. Therefore, the main conclusion of this study is that practioners should promote players' commitment to the team and avoid intra-group conflicts within teams to have a resilient team that copes with problems more easily.