Case Report: Effect of providing penalty kicking tendencies on goalkeeper's motor behaviour and performance: a case study with an on-field intervention on youth football

The penalty kick is a crucial action in a football match that may determine the final outcome. It features a direct interaction between the shooter and goalkeeper where both search for relevant information as a means to achieve their respective performance goals. A case study, composed of an on-field intervention, was designed to analyze the influence of providing in advance penalty kicking tendencies of the shooters on a youth goalkeeping movement onset and saving performance. Data collection took place over 8 training sessions where a U10 young low-skilled, male goalkeeper and shooters were subjected to a penalty-kick shootout task. In each session, the goalkeeper faced a set of 10 penalty kicks recorded by a high-speed HD camera which allowed to calculate the moment that the shooter hit the ball and the goalkeeper movement onset in the direction of ball trajectory. Results showed that the goalkeeper delayed response initiation in the retention phase, when compared to the baseline and training phases, by moving closer to the foot-to-ball contact time by the penalty shooter. From this study, it can be highlighted that goalkeeping saving actions were adapted to the provision of a priori information about shooter kicking tendencies, to sustain a higher performance of the young goalkeeper during the penalty duelling.

Effects of video-based training on anticipation and decision-making in football players: A systematic review

The training of athletes' anticipation and decision-making skills has received increasing attention from researchers, who developed and implemented training programs to achieve this. Video-based training (VBT) has become a popular method in anticipation and decision-making skills training. However, little is known about the benefits of implementing VBT in soccer. This systematic review considered the results of studies on VBT aiming to develop decision-making and anticipation skills in football players, and analyzed its effects. Literature published up to March 2022 was systematically searched on the scientific electronic databases Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, SportDiscus, and Google Scholar. In total, 5,749 articles were identified. After screening the records according to the set exclusion and inclusion criteria, ten articles were considered eligible, including six longitudinal studies and four acute studies. Eight of the ten included studies (80%) showed that VBT group performance in anticipation or decision-making skills was significantly better at post-test than at pre-test, as evidenced by improvements in response accuracy (RA), response times (RT), mean distance scores (MDS) and passing decision-making performance. In six studies that included the no video-based training (NVBT) group, results showed that athletes in the VBT group performed better in anticipation or decision-making skills than in the NVBT group, as evidenced by improvements in RA and RT performance. The studies used different methods for VBT, both explicit and implicit training effectively improved participants' anticipation and decision-making skills. In addition, the implementation of the "first-person" perspective (i.e., the player's perspective) and virtual reality (VR) improved the presentation of video stimuli, effectively improving anticipation and decision-making. The findings of this review suggest that VBT is beneficial in developing anticipation and decision-making judgments in football players. However, some findings were inconsistent with previous studies due to differences in intervention duration and experimental protocols, and further studies are needed. Furthermore, future research should actively seek to design appropriate retention tests and transfer tests to truly understand the benefits of VBT for athletes.

Goalkeeping in the soccer penalty kick: The dive is coordinated to the kicker's non-kicking leg placement, irrespective of time constraints

Traditionally, goalkeeping in the soccer penalty kick has been studied using video-based technology, in which goalkeepers watched video footage of penalty kicks and indicated perceived ball direction. By omitting the requirement to actually dive or jump to the ball, these studies overlooked how action capabilities constrain goalkeepers' actions. By contrast, we examined whether goalkeeping in the penalty kick is consistent with affordance-based control, that is, whether goalkeepers guide their dive by taking into account their action capabilities (i.e., the time they need to intercept the ball). To this end, high- and moderate-skilled goalkeepers faced in-situ penalty kicks. Time constraints were manipulated by varying the kicking distance and the kicker's run-up speed. The results showed that goalkeepers of both skills level scaled the lateral dive onset to their action capabilities, but high-skilled goalkeepers acted closer to their maximum action boundary. In doing so, goalkeepers did not take the varying time constraints into account. Instead, high-skilled goalkeepers acted consistent with a strategy in which they coordinated the onset of the dive with the landing of kicker's non-kicking leg next to the ball. Consequently, we only find partial support for affordance-based control. We propose that this is explained by reliable information becoming available (too) late within the spatiotemporal constraints of the penalty kick.

Effects of Psychological and Psychosocial Interventions on Sport Performance: A Meta-Analysis

BACKGROUND

Psychologists are increasingly supporting the quest for performance enhancement in sport and there is a need to evaluate the evidence base underpinning their work.

OBJECTIVES

To synthesize the most rigorous available research that has evaluated psychological, social, and psychosocial interventions with sport performers on variables relating to their athletic performance, and to address some of the perplexing issues in the sport psychology intervention literature (e.g., do interventions have a lasting effect on sport performance?).

METHODS

Randomized controlled trials were identified through electronic databases, hand-searching volumes of pertinent journals, scrutinizing reference lists of previous reviews, and contacting experts in the evaluation of interventions in this field. Included studies were required to evaluate the effects of psychological, social, or psychosocial interventions on sport performance in athletes when compared to a no-treatment or placebo-controlled treatment comparison group. A random effects meta-analysis calculating the standardized mean difference (Hedges' g), meta-regressions, and trim and fill analyses were conducted. Data were analyzed at post-test and follow-up (ranging from 1 to 4 weeks after the intervention finished) assessments.

RESULTS

Psychological and psychosocial interventions were shown to enhance sport performance at post-test (k = 35, n = 997, Hedges' g = 0.57, 95 % CI = 0.22-0.92) and follow-up assessments (k = 8, n = 189, Hedges' g = 1.16, 95 % CI = 0.25-2.08); no social interventions were included or evaluated. Larger effects were found for psychosocial interventions and there was some evidence that effects were greatest in coach-delivered interventions and in samples with a greater proportion of male participants.

CONCLUSIONS

Psychological and psychosocial interventions have a moderate positive effect on sport performance, and this effect may last at least a month following the end of the intervention. Future research would benefit from following guidelines for intervention reporting.

Looking to Learn: The Effects of Visual Guidance on Observational Learning of the Golf Swing

Skilled performers exhibit more efficient gaze patterns than less-skilled counterparts do and they look more frequently at task-relevant regions than at superfluous ones. We examine whether we may guide novices' gaze towards relevant regions during action observation in order to facilitate their learning of a complex motor skill. In a Pre-test-Post-test examination of changes in their execution of the full golf swing, 21 novices viewed one of three videos at intervention: i) a skilled golfer performing 10 swings (Free Viewing, FV); ii) the same video with transient colour cues superimposed to highlight key features of the setup (Visual Guidance; VG); iii) or a History of Golf video (Control). Participants in the visual guidance group spent significantly more time looking at cued areas than did the other two groups, a phenomenon that persisted after the cues had been removed. Moreover, the visual guidance group improved their swing execution at Post-test and on a Retention test one week later. Our results suggest that visual guidance to cued areas during observational learning of complex motor skills may accelerate acquisition of the skill.