ORIGINAL ARTICLE  EXERCISE PHYSIOLOGY AND BIOMECHANICS 

The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness 2022 April;62(4):485-91

DOI: 10.23736/S0022-4707.21.12189-9

Copyright © 2021 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

New aspects for match analysis to improve understanding of game scenario and training organization in top-level male water polo players

Giovanni MELCHIORRI ^{1, 2, 3}, Valerio VIERO ^{2, 4} ✉, Daniele BIANCHI ⁴, Virginia TANCREDI ⁵, Marco BONIFAZI ^{2, 6}, Alessandro CAMPAGNA ², Tamara TRIOSSI ^{2, 4}

¹ School of Sport and Exercise Sciences, Department of Systems Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, Tor Vergata University, Rome, Italy; ² Italian Swimming Federation, Rome, Italy; ³ Fondazione IRCCS Don Carlo Gnocchi, Milan, Italy; ⁴ School of Sport and Exercise Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, Tor Vergata University, Rome, Italy; ⁵ Department of Systems Medicine and Center of Space Biomedicine, Tor Vergata University, Rome, Italy; ⁶ Department of Medical, Surgical and Neuroscience Sciences, University of Siena, Siena, Italy

BACKGROUND: We intended to verify through time-motion analysis the characteristics of the sequences of actions in terms of occurrence during water polo matches: number, duration, and possible relationships with technical-tactical aspects.
METHODS: Water polo matches played at the 18^th FINA World Championships 2019, Gwangju, South Korea, were chosen for examination, and the analysis involved both single actions and Trains of Actions (ToAs). A ToA is a sequence of actions that occurs during the match without actual game interruption.
RESULTS: A total of 1261 game actions were evaluated in the 17 matches analyzed. In 89% of cases the actions occurred in ToAs while in 11% of cases they took place as single actions. On average, each match included 74.4±5.3 actions; of these, only 7.9±3.4 (CI at 95%: lower bound 6.1 and upper bound 9.6) were single actions while 66.2±5.5 occurred in sequences (ToA2=29.6±9.0%; ToA3=26.1±9.7%; ToA4=16.5±10.6%). The winning team performed on average more actions than the losing one (42.1±6.1 vs. 32.0±6.4; effect size: 1.67; P value: 0.001). The ToAs had different compositions, from 2 to 18 actions, and then very different durations, from about 1 minute up to 8 minutes. 66% of goals were scored after ToAs and 34% after single actions.
CONCLUSIONS: The study of ToAs provides useful information on the physiological demand of the game, which may help to plan and organize physical training making it as specific as possible. The description of ToAs can help coaches to better define the game scenario and understand which technical and tactical measures are needed to improve game organization.

KEY WORDS: Team sports; Vocational education; Sports