An ecological approach for skill development and performance in soccer goalkeeper training: Empirical evidence and coaching applications.

Ecological approaches in sport consider that athletes adapt to properties of the task and the surrounding environment. Thus, task and environment are key constraints of performance. Yet, the influence of task and environmental constraints on athletes' performance needs empirical examination, especially in sport-specific contexts such as soccer goalkeeping. This study aimed to examine if and how task and environmental constraints influenced goalkeepers (GKs') performances. We monitored performance coefficients of two professional female GKs across 13 training tasks that varied based on 9 constraints, referring to both interactions among athletes and properties of the surrounding landscape. Results showed that constraints explain ~ 47% of the observed variability in GKs' performances. Numerical complexity (i.e., the potential interactions between athletes) showed a major influence on performance, which indicates that number of interactions among athletes may constrain GKs' perceived opportunities for action. Field dimensions and landscape representativity (including elements such as penalty area(s), target goal(s) and constraints for shooting) showed positive relationships with performance, supporting that training designs retaining closer proximity to the game may benefit GKs' performances. Overall, results supported that athlete-environment couplings could be understood as a multifactorial model and hence, a combination of task constraints are necessary for designing effective learning environments.

How does the modern football goalkeeper train? - An exploration of expert goalkeeper coaches' skill training approaches.

The football goalkeeper position arguably represents a unique role within the team sport. Despite its highly complex skill demands, research on football goalkeeping has only sporadically examined the position within isolated and limited parameters. In particular, there is limited literature on "modern" skill acquisition training methods and approaches within the field of goalkeeper training. In a cross-cultural study with fifteen expert goalkeeper coaches, researchers here examined the overarching research question of "how does the modern football goalkeeper train?". Semi-structured interviews explored expert coaches' views on critical skills for performance in goalkeeping and the training approaches used to develop these critical skills. Results indicate that four skill sets are considered essential by goalkeeper coaches, these are: decision-making skills, athleticism, mentality, and technical skills. In terms of developing these skills in goalkeeper-specific training, the majority of expert coaches apply a similar microstructure to training sessions. This structure involves a steady progression from simple to complex training tasks, where for large parts, isolated technical training appears to be prioritised over a holistic training approach that integrates technical skills and perceptual-cognitive components (e.g., decision making). Scientific and practical recommendations for researchers and practitioners in the field of football goalkeeper coaching are provided.

What do you hear? The effect of stadium noise on football players' passing performances.

Stadium noise - created by spectators and fans - plays a critical part in the reality of professional sports. Due to a lack of research on the impact of these auditory cues and multimodal environments on motor performance, it is currently unclear how professional athletes experience and perceive stadium noise and how this potentially affects performance in practice. In order to explore the effect of stadium noise on athletes' performance, this paper presents an experimental design using the unique and standardised football training tool known as the "Footbonaut". Specifically, fifteen skilled German football players engaged in a standardised football-specific technical training programme while subjected to four different auditory training conditions; these included both "positive" and "negative" stadium noise conditions, a "baseline" condition providing auditory guidance, and a "no (auditory) cue" condition. Performance data for passing accuracy and passing time were measured for training in each auditory condition. A repeated measures MANOVA revealed a significant main effect for passing time. Specifically, participants showed faster passing times in the baseline compared to the negative and no auditory cue conditions. Findings are presented and discussed from a constraints-led perspective, allied to principles of ecological dynamics and nonlinear pedagogy. Particularly, the use of representative training experiences (including multimodal sensory and emotional information) appears to underline training to refine expert athletes' adaptive coordination of complex motor actions.

When and How to Provide Feedback and Instructions to Athletes?-How Sport Psychology and Pedagogy Insights Can Improve Coaching Interventions to Enhance Self-Regulation in Training.

In specialist sports coaching, the type and manner of augmented information that the coach chooses to use in communicating and training with individual athletes can have a significant impact on skill development and performance. Informed by insights from psychology, pedagogy, and sport science, this position paper presents a practitioner-based approach in response to the overarching question: When, why, and how could coaches provide information to athletes during coaching interventions? In an ecological dynamics rationale, practice is seen as a search for functional performance solutions, and augmented feedback is outlined as instructional constraints to guide athletes' self-regulation of action in practice. Using the exemplar of team sports, we present a Skill Training Communication Model for practical application in the context of the role of a specialist coach, using a constraints-led approach (CLA). Further based on principles of a non-linear pedagogy and using the recently introduced Periodization of Skill Training (PoST) framework, the proposed model aims to support practitioners' understanding of the pedagogical constraints of feedback and instruction during practice. In detail, the PoST framework's three skill development and training stages work to (1) directly impact constraint manipulations in practice designs and (2) indirectly affect coaches' choices of external (coach-induced) information. In turn, these guide practitioners on how and when to apply different verbal instruction methodologies and aim to support the design of effective skill learning environments. Finally, several practical guidelines in regard to sports coaches' feedback and instruction processes are proposed.

Specialist Coaching Integrated into a Department of Methodology in Team Sports Organisations.

With increasing resources in sports organisations being allocated to the development and preparation of individual athletes and sub-groups with specialist performance roles, the work of coaches, specialist (role) coaches and support staff needs to be functionally and coherently integrated. This integration of sport science support and coaching can be administered by staff in a Department of Methodology (DoM). Particularly, in this paper, we propose how specialist coaching can be situated in a DoM, presenting a model advocating effective functioning in high-performance team sports organisations. Using principles of ecological dynamics, we provide a rationale for a functional methodology for the design of practice tasks in a DoM that views learners as wayfinders, self-regulating their way through competitive performance environments. This rationale for athlete self-regulation in practice could improve athlete performance by enhancing problem solving, engagement with constraints of learning designs and supporting better attunement to contextual information abundant in a competitive environment. Finally, by introducing this unified and multidisciplinary DoM, specialist coaches, team coaches and sport science support staff, within the organisational structure, can collaboratively debate and co-design individualised athlete training programmes to enrich skill adaptability and performance functionality. To underline these contentions, three high-performance sport case studies from Australian Football: goalkeeping in Association Football and Rugby League are presented.

Skill Training Periodization in "Specialist" Sports Coaching-An Introduction of the "PoST" Framework for Skill Development.

Across sports and movement science, training periodization has been recognized as key for athlete development and performance. While periodization with regard to physiology has a proven history, the structuring and periodization of motor learning and skill development is seemingly less researched and practiced. Despite the existence of numerous theoretical accounts underpinning skill acquisition training and more recently emerging periodization models, a cohesive framework to practically support coaches in the context of "specialist coaching" appears to be needed. The use of "specialist coaches" for individualized, one-on-one or small group trainings displays a growing trend in team ball sports. Despite limiting the replication of game-representative environments (i.e., by constraining the number of involved athletes in training), "specialist coaches" in performance sport constantly aim to achieve marginal gains and refinements in athlete development. In order to support these "specialist coaches" and fill a research gap on skill training periodization, the current paper seeks to review and transfer contemporary skill acquisition training theory (driven by the constraints-led approach) into a practically-applicable "Periodization of Skill Training" framework ("PoST" framework). This framework provides valuable conceptual and practical support for "specialist coaches" in performance sport; which will in turn, enhance, and refine adaptive movement variability for sport skills and manipulate skill training environments (i.e., over the course of macro- and micro-cycles, and for the planning of single training sessions). Practical examples from soccer goalkeeping (i.e., a "specialist coaching" context, often constrained to a small number of players in the training environment) will underline the proposed framework.