Using multi-criteria decision-making and machine learning for football player selection and performance prediction:a systematic review

Evaluating and selecting players to suit football clubs and decision-makers (coaches, managers, technical, and medical staff) is a difficult process from a managerial-financial and sporting perspective. Football is a highly competitive sport where sponsors and fans are attracted by success. The most successful players, based on their characteristics (criteria and sub-criteria), can influence the outcome of a football game at any given time. Consequently, the D-day of selection should employ a more appropriate approach to human resource management. To effectively address this issue, a detailed study and analysis of the available literature are needed to assist practitioners and professionals in making decisions about football player selection and hiring. Peer-reviewed journals were selected for collecting published papers between 2018 and 2023. A total of 66 relevant articles (journal articles, conference articles, book sections, and review articles) were selected for evaluation and analysis. The purpose of the study is to present a systematic literature review (SLR) on how to solve this problem and organize the published research papers that answer our four research questions.

Concept, Interests and Systems: Logical Consciousness of the China Campus Football Policy Trip

Based on the “Healthy China 2030 Planning Outline”, the literature method and logical analysis method are used to review and analyze the implementation process of China’s school football policy from three dimensions: value, interest appeal and institutional background. The study believes that in order to break through the bottleneck of policy implementation and improve the effect of policy implementation, it is necessary to establish correct values and form broad recognition of policies;meet the reasonable interests of all parties and form a synergy for policy implementation;optimize the institutional environment for policy implementation and form effective incentives.

Automatic Team Assignment and Jersey Number Recognition in Football Videos

Football is one of the most-watched sports,but analyzing players’per-formance is currently difficult and labor intensive.Performance analysis is done manually,which means that someone must watch video recordings and then log each player’s performance.This includes the number of passes and shots taken by each player,the location of the action,and whether or not the play had a successful outcome.Due to the time-consuming nature of manual analyses,interest in automatic analysis tools is high despite the many interdependent phases involved,such as pitch segmentation,player and ball detection,assigning players to their teams,identifying individual players,activity recognition,etc.This paper proposes a system for developing an automatic video analysis tool for sports.The proposed system is the first to integrate multiple phases,such as segmenting the field,detecting the players and the ball,assigning players to their teams,and iden-tifying players’jersey numbers.In team assignment,this research employed unsu-pervised learning based on convolutional autoencoders(CAEs)to learn discriminative latent representations and minimize the latent embedding distance between the players on the same team while simultaneously maximizing the dis-tance between those on opposing teams.This paper also created a highly accurate approach for the real-time detection of the ball.Furthermore,it also addressed the lack of jersey number datasets by creating a new dataset with more than 6,500 images for numbers ranging from 0 to 99.Since achieving a high perfor-mance in deep learning requires a large training set,and the collected dataset was not enough,this research utilized transfer learning(TL)to first pretrain the jersey number detection model on another large dataset and then fine-tune it on the target dataset to increase the accuracy.To test the proposed system,this paper presents a comprehensive evaluation of its individual stages as well as of the sys-tem as a whole.

基于风险的Football组合法在筛选农用地优先控制酞酸酯类污染物的应用

为探索建立农用地优先管控酞酸酯类有毒有害化学物质的筛选方法,基于Football组合法开展了相关研究。结果表明,邻苯二甲酸二丁酯(DBP)、邻苯二甲酸二(2-乙基己基)酯(DEHP)、邻苯二甲酸二异丁酯(DIBP)、邻苯二甲酸丁基苄基酯(BBP)和邻苯二甲酸二乙酯(DEP)等5 种酞酸酯类内源污染物潜在风险较高,将筛选结果与国内外管控化学物质名单进行比较分析,表明Football组合法可用于筛选农用地优先控制酞酸酯类有毒有害物质。

Football injuries of the ankle: A review of injury mechanisms, diagnosis and management

Football is the most popular sport worldwide and is associated with a high injury rate, most of which are the result of trauma from player contact. Ankle injuries are among the most commonly diagnosed injuries in the game. The result is reduced physical activity and endurance levels, lost game time, and considerable medical cost. Sports medicine professionals must employ the correct diagnostic tools and effective treatments and rehabilitation protocols to minimize the impact of these injuries on the player. This review examines the diagnosis, treatment, and postoperative rehabilitation for common football injuries of the ankle based on the clinical evidence provided in the current literature.

Effect of deep transverse friction massage vs stretching on football players’ performance

BACKGROUND Flexibility,agility and muscle strength are key factors to either win or lose a game.Recently the effect of a new technique,deep transverse friction massage(DTFM)on muscle extensibility as compared to traditional stretching techniques has been examined.AIM To compare the effect of DTFM vs static and dynamic stretching techniques on the hamstring’s extensibility,agility,and strength amongst Lebanese and Syrian football players.Recording the incidence of non-contact hamstring muscle injury was a secondary objective.METHODS This study is a single-blinded prospective longitudinal randomized controlled trial.The experiment took place over a period of four weeks.Football players were randomized into three intervention groups(static stretching;dynamic stretching;DTFM).Participants of each group were followed-up carefully by assessors during their intervention sessions three times per week,for a total of 12 sessions and during the data collection.Extensibility,agility,and strength were compared between intervention groups at(baseline;acute;and chronic)phases.Straight leg raise and 1 repetition maximum tests were used to measure the dominant leg hamstring muscle extensibility and maximal strength respectively.T-drill test was used to assess the lower extremities agility.RESULTS Of 103 Lebanese and Syrian male football players aged between 18 and 35 were sampled from Damascus-Syria and South of Lebanon to participate in this study.Between-groups measures of acute strength(P=0.011)and chronic extensibility(P=0.000)solely showed a significant difference,and the static group showed to be superior as compared to the other groups.No loss to follow-up or protocol violation was recorded.CONCLUSION Static stretching is showing to be superior to the other techniques used,regarding gaining long-term extensibility and short-term maximal muscle strength.In addition,DTFM showed improvements but did not outweigh the effects on footballers’performance when comparing it to static and dynamic techniques.Finally,no difference between the interventions is recorded regarding the rate of muscle injuries incidence.

Evaluating the Performance of Iranian Football Teams Utilizing Linear Programming

In this paper, we utilize Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), which is a linear programming-based technique, for evaluating the performance of the teams which operate in the Iranian primer football league. We use Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique for aggregating the sub-factors which involve in input-output factors, and then DEA is used for calculating the efficiency measures. Also, AHP is used to construct some weight restrictions for increasing the discrimination power of the used DEA model. For calculating the efficiency measures, input-oriented weight-restricted BCC model is utilized.

ECG and Echocardiographic Findings of Athletes in Bamako—A Study among 227 Footballers

Background: A cardiovascular assessment is rarely performed among athletes despite more and more frequently reported fatal events. Most of these accidents are of cardiovascular origin. Moreover, data on ECG or Echocardiography are rare in our context justifying our study to assess electrical and echocardiographic pattern among high-level footballer in Bamako. Methods: It was a cross-sectional study conducted in Bamako from April 2015 to?March 2016 among high-level footballers aged 14 to 35 years old without distinction of sex with at least 10 hours weekly training since one year. The ECG and echocardiographies were recorded respectively with a 12-lead CONTEC and an ATL 5000 echocardiographic machine. Each ECG record was analyzed by a cardiologist in accordance with the Seattle 2013 criteria and those pathological reviewed by a second cardiologist according to the same criteria and definitively classified as normal (physiological) or abnormal ECG (requiring complementary explorations). A third cardiologist was associated in case of discordance of the first results. The collected data were inserted in a Microsoft Excel sheet and analyzed with SPSS version 20. Chi Square and Fisher statistical tests were used to compare our results. The significance level was set at 0.05. Results: We collected data of 227 top footballers with male sex represented in 90.3% giving a sex ratio of 3.04. Means for age, weight, height, body mass index (BMI) were respectively 22 years, 69.90 kg, 177.21 cm and 22.21 kg/m2. Sinus bradycardia was found in a proportion of 45.8% more represented in the age group of 30 and more years (p = 0.275). First-degree atrioventricular block (AVB) was present in 19.4%. Short PR was found in 0.4% of the sample. Left ventricular hypertrophy (LVG) according to the Sokolow index was found in 70.5% (96.9% males and 3.1% females) with p Conclusion: Many electrical and echocardiographic signs of cardiac adaptation were found in our sample and must lead to a closer follow-up of these trained footballers to avoid or prevent dramatic cardiovascular events.

Modelling home advantage for individual teams in UEFA Champions League football

Background:Home advantage(HA) is well documented in a wide range of team sports including association football(soccer).Although much attention has been paid to differences in the overall magnitude of HA between football competitions and across time,few studies have investigated HA at the team level.Methods:A novel method of estimating HA for individual teams,based solely on home performance,was used to compare HA between the highest performing teams and countries in the Union of European Football Associations(UEFA) Champions League over a 10-year period(2003/2004 to 2012/2013).Away disadvantage(AD) was also estimated based on each team's performance away from home.Poisson regression analysis was used to estimate covariate adjusted HA and AD in terms of the percentage of goals scored at home(HA) and conceded away from home(AD).Results:When controlling for differences in team ability,HA did not vary significantly between the 13 selected teams.There was evidence(p < 0.1),however,of between-team variation in AD,ranging from 45%(away advantage) to 68%(away disadvantage).When teams were grouped into the 11 selected countries,both HA and AD varied significantly(p < 0.02) between countries:HA ranged from 52% for Turkish teams to 70%for English teams,while AD ranged from 52%(France) to 67%(Turkey).Conclusion:Differences in style of play and tactical approaches to home and away matches may explain some of the variation in HA and AD between teams from different countries.

A relationship between temperature and aggression in NFL football penalties

Background： Increased ambient temperature has been implicated in increased physical aggression, which has important practical consequences. The present study investigates this established relationship between aggressive behavior and ambient temperature in the highly aggressive context of professional football in the National Football League （NFL）. Methods： Using a publicly available dataset, authors conducted multiple hierarchical regression analyses on game-level data （2326 games）. Results： The analysis revealed that temperature positively predicted aggressive penalties in football, and that this relationship was significant for teams playing at home but not for visiting teams. Conclusion： These results indicate that even in the aggressive context of football, warmer weather contributes to increased violence. Further, the presence of the heat-aggression relationship for the home team suggests that the characteristics of interacting groups may influence whether heat would have an adverse effect on the outcome of those interactions.

Assessing the Impact of Internet of Everything Technologies in Football

Internet of Things has been one of the hottest technology concepts of recent years. It started with the wearable devices and any digital device connected online, and evolved to a web connected network linking everything from devices, sensors, machines, people, processes, companies, and so on, creating the Interact of Everything concept. There are many application areas, but one stands out due to its popularization and importance to industry, Sports, and specifically Football. Football has been reinventing itself with the implementation of technology, recreating the formula used in the United States Major Sports, where technology helps to enhance the spectacle experience, expand game analysis by coaches, players, and media, provide live refereeing and improve health recoveries and detection of injuries. This research is a state-of-situation regarding technology in football, recognizing the presently used technologies and what could be implemented, and ultimately measuring the impact of these devices in Football.

The Reliability of the Prowler in High School Male Football Players

Horizontal plane muscular power output is important in sports such as football especially for down lineman who must engage an opponent and push them for a number of yards. The Prowler resistance sled is a commonly used apparatus that aids in the development of horizontal plane muscular power output. However, there is limited documentation regarding the Prowler＇s role as a strength and conditioning training modality as well as its potential use as an assessment tool for measuring horizontal plane muscular power output. Hence, the purpose of this study was to assess the reliability of the Prowler sled push in High School male football players. High School male football players （n = 16） performed two trials of the Prowler sled push 91 kilograms （200 pounds） for a distance of 9.1 meters （10 yards）. Each trial was timed with a handheld stop watch with a 2-3 minute rest period between trials. The trial 1 and 2 scores were 5.14 ±0.95 and 5.15 ±0.88 seconds respectively. The interclass and intraclass reliability coefficients were r = 0.93 and ICC = 0.93. The standard error of the measure was SEre = 0.25 seconds with 90% confidence limits Of UL： 0.36, LL： 0.20. The mean difference between trials was 0.01 ±0.36 seconds （90% confidence limits Of UL： 0.17, LL： -0.14）. Within the parameters of this study, the Prowler sled push is a highly reliable field test for measuring horizontal plane muscular power output.

Stretching in the prevention of hamstring strains: Attitudes, beliefs and current practices among football coaches in Mauritius

Context and Objective: Hamstring strain is a common injury in football and it causes a significant amount of time lost from competition and training. Since poor flexibility is thought to predispose to muscle strain, stretching is routinely recommended during warm-up routines by coaches to prevent injuries. However, available evidence suggests that pre-exercise stretching (PES), especially static stretching, has no benefit on injury rates and may even reduce performance in explosive type activities. We designed this study to assess the attitudes, beliefs and practices of football coaches regarding stretching in the prevention of hamstring strains. Design: A cross-sectional survey. Setting: Mauritius Football Association (MFA). Participants: 26 football coaches registered with the MFA. Intervention: Questionnaires were distributed to football coaches of the MFA via sports officers. Questionnaires were then collected two weeks after distribution. Main Outcome Measures: Attitudes, beliefs and practices of football coaches regarding stretching in the prevention of ham-string strains. Results: MFA coaches held generally positive attitudes and beliefs towards stretching. 88% of coaches felt that PES is beneficial and 93% believed that PES prevents hamstring strains. The majority of coaches recommended stretching after warming up (81%) and after the training session (93%). 76% of coaches also advised stretching outside the training sessions. 96% of coaches used static stretching to stretch the hamstrings. The hamstrings were stretched on average for 4 times at each training session and the mean duration of a static stretch was 12 seconds. Conclusions: Nearly all coaches believed that PES prevents hamstring strains although evidence is limited. Some of the coaches’ beliefs and practices were not in line with current recommendations. Coaches reported that their stretching practices would be most likely influenced by scientific research. Thus there is an urgent need to devise awareness and training programmes in this area.

Effects of COVID-19 Lockdown on Body Composition and Fitness Performance among Football Players in Negro African Environment

Context and Objective: The nutritional and sports dimension of the lockdown implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic is unexplored in the African environment. The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of COVID-19 lockdown on body composition and fitness performance in Congolese football players. Methods: This was an observational study carried out in Brazzaville between February 9 and October 30, 2020. It included 16 male players among Congolese senior national team and 11 male football players of first division Brazzaville clubs. Two types of measurements were carried out: anthropometric measures (height, body mass, total fat percent, lean body mass);physical capacities [30 m sprint, repeated sprint, aerobic endurance (Yo-Yo Intermittent Recovery test), vertical jump (Squat Jump test, Countermovement test)]. The measurements were realized at 4 times: before lockdown (month of february, T0), 1st week of june (T1), 1st week of september (T2), 1st week of october (T3). Data were compared using Student t test, Sokal S test, Anova, Newman-Keuls test (multiple contrasts) and correlation analysis. Results: A significant increase in body mass (p Conclusion: The present data suggest that COVID-19 lockdown promotes weight gain and decreased physical ability in football players.

Functional Ankle Instability Prevalence and Associated Risk Factors in Male Football Players

Background: The injuries sustained in football most frequently occur to the lower extremity, with ankle and knee being the most affected joint segments. Many studies have defined ankle sprain as one of the most common sports injuries with an annual incidence rate of 15% to 45%, however, there’s a lack of studies in football regional leagues. Risk factors like anthropometric measures, field position, dominant limb, previous injury have been described as being associated with ankle injuries in the elite sports context. The primary aim of this study was to determine prevalence rates of self-reported ankle instability in regional leagues. A secondary aim was to explore the presence of extrinsic factors affecting ankle instability in these football players. Methods: The heads of all clubs (n = 66) from Coimbra and Aveiro (Portugal) regional male senior football divisions during season 2016/2017 were contacted by e-mail or telephone to enter the study, and 58 gave their permission to include their athletes. Then, all players from each of these 58 teams were invited to enter the study (n = 1044) and a total of 589 athletes participated. Demographic and anthropometric data were recorded concerning age, height, weight, years of training, mean number of training hours, position in camp along with specific questions related to an ankle injury. All participants were asked about their previous history of injury, reinjury, feeling of giving-away and where also asked to fill the Cumberland Ankle Instability Tool. Results: A total of 290 (49.2%) athletes reported a history of at least one previous sprain and, from these, 170 (58.6%) repeated the injury and 112 (19%) reported sensation of “giving-away”. A significant association was found between injury, recurrence and subjective feeling of giving away (p < 0.05). The player field’s position was found to be associated with ankle instability, with defenders and forwards having higher rates of self-reported instability. No other significant associations were found. Conclusion: Along with intrinsic factors (age and injury repetition), some extrinsic factors were found to be associated with instability rates in professional regional football players (exposure time, and position on the field) suggesting the need for specific prevention strategies.

An Expert System for Advising to Buy a FootballPlayer Using Visual Prolog

This work presents the design of an Expert System that aims to advice the club teams to buy a football player in the post that they needed. Suggesting different player in many posts by an expert person is based on football experience, knowledge about the player and the club that he works. For mechanization the ability of this person, we use Expert System because it can model the ability of a person in solving a problem. Visual Prolog language is used as a tool for designing our Expert System.

Young footballers, assessed by deep breathing test, have a higher vagal response

Parasympathetic function can be assessed by the deep breathing test (DB) as a simple and reproducible cardiovascular reflex. The aim of this study is to use this test to compare the vagal response of a young footballers group to of age-matched untrained normal subjects. Deep breathing test was performed in 2 groups: one of 20 adult young footballers (average age of 19.3 ± 0.6 years), and a second age-matched group of 20 untrained subjects (average age of 19.6 ± 0.6 years). Subjects underwent the DB test after 30 min resting in supine position, and responses were expressed as a percentage of variation of heart rate during the stimulation. Student’s t-test was used to evaluate statistical differences among the two groups for all parameters (vagal response, heart rate, VO2max….) and considering p < 0.05 as a significant difference. The results showed that vagal response to deep breathing test was significantly higher in the young footballers when compared to the untrained controls (72.6% ± 16.2% vs 55.0% ± 12.8%, respectively, p = 0.03). The basal heart rate was significantly lower in footballers than in the controls group (52.1 ± 7.4 bat/min vs 69.8 ± 14.3 bat/min, p < 0.01). The use of the simple test of deep breathing allowed us to demonstrate that adult young footballers have a significantly lower basal HR and higher parasympathetic response in comparison to untrained subjects.

Impact of Football Fields on His Progress

The purpose of this article is to identify, through the methodology, the impact that the quality of football fields and their continuous improvement influences the football players and the football level in general, as well as the advantages; and disadvantages of this process. In the meantime, it reveals the football field＇s quality effects in the performance at the national championships, at television transmission rights, and sale of football players to foreign clubs. In addition, the dynamics of investment in the last two decades and the Albanian Football Federation objectives for the future are an important part of this article

Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Contributions Made by Football Clubs in England

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emission from waste is a major environmental problem. Globally, the waste management sector contributes an estimated 5% of the total anthropogenic GHG emissions. This paper estimates GHG emissions from football clubs in the England, where football is the highest profile and most popular sport, with large numbers of spectators and significant quantities of waste being produced. Football clubs should be more committed to reducing their GHG emissions by improving their waste management. The amount of GHG emitted from eight football tiers in England is assessed through methods including interviews, observations and questionnaires. The results reveal that in the 2012/13-football season, over 9 million spectators watched football in the lower leagues, with mean waste per spectator of 3.27 kg. 30,146,000 kg of waste was generated at the 8 football tiers, and the amount of waste sent to the landfill was about 74,000,000 kg, which resulted in GHG emissions of approximately 2,100,000 kg CO2e. The implications for better waste management at football leagues are outlined.

Reminiscences of Days as an Undergraduate at Caltech in the 1960s: Geology, Student Body Politics and Intercollegiate Football

From 1960 to 1964, I was an undergraduate student at the California Institute of Technology [Caltech] in Pasadena, California. During these years, I spent much of my time indulging in student body politics and playing intercollegiate football. However, with the encouragement of a number of faculty in the Division of Geological Sciences [not yet GPS], I saw the light and became a geology major [strictly speaking, geophysics]. This paper is an expansion of a talk I presented at the 90th Anniversary of the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences in 2017.