Competing together: assessing the dynamics of team–team and player–team synchrony in professional association football

This study investigated movement synchronization of players within and between teams during competitive association football performance. Cluster phase analysis was introduced as a method to assess synchronies between whole teams and between individual players with their team as a function of time, ball possession and field direction. Measures of dispersion (SD) and regularity (sample entropy – SampEn – and cross sample entropy – Cross-SampEn) were used to quantify the magnitude and structure of synchrony. Large synergistic relations within each professional team sport collective were observed, particularly in the longitudinal direction of the field (0.89 ± 0.12) compared to the lateral direction (0.73 ± 0.16, p < .01). The coupling between the group measures of the two teams also revealed that changes in the synchrony of each team were intimately related (Cross-SampEn values of 0.02 ± 0.01). Interestingly, ball possession did not influence team synchronization levels. In player–team synchronization, individuals tended to be coordinated under near in-phase modes with team behavior (mean ranges between −7 and 5° of relative phase). The magnitudes of variations were low, but more irregular in time, for the longitudinal (SD: 18 ± 3°; SampEn: 0.07 ± 0.01), compared to the lateral direction (SD: 28 ± 5°; SampEn: 0.06 ± 0.01, p < .05) on-field. Increases in regularity were also observed between the first (SampEn: 0.07 ± 0.01) and second half (SampEn: 0.06 ± 0.01, p < .05) of the observed competitive game. Findings suggest that the method of analysis introduced in the current study may offer a suitable tool for examining team’s synchronization behaviors and the mutual influence of each team’s cohesiveness in competing social collectives.