STATISTICS IN TEAM SPORTS

Team sports are very complex sports that combine fitness and skills with strategy and execution, therefore the success will depend on several aspects. In the same way as the fitness level of the players is controlled with physical tests, or the training load of the sessions is monitored with several methods (HR, HRV, RPE, or specific softwares); the performance during the matches is controlled through the statistics.

It is very popular to see a person on the team bench writing down individual statistics during the games. In my opinion, statistics can help the coach to make decisions during the match, so the statistics template must be designed to take the specific aspects required by the head coach. In other words, the same template should not be used by several coaches if they are looking for different aspects during the game. However, since a model can be used to design your own template, the main objective of this post will be to show the statistics templates that I have used in my teams.

BASKETBALL

1) Fundación 6.25 (Spain)

When I was working as a fitness coach for the “Fundación 6.25” in Spain, we had a specific member on the staff to take the statistics so they were very complete: shot chart, defensive and offensice rebounds, turnovers, steals, assists, blocks, fouls and fouls on, the time on court for every single player and the score. In the shot chart we recorded both teams.

Template used in the games with the Fundación 6.25 teams.

2) Manchester Mystics Women’s Basketball

In this team, the template was simpler since we only controlled the fouls made by our players, the free throws, the breaks and a shot chart, where both teams’ shots were recorded.

Manchester Mystics Women's Basketball Team match template.

 3) Great Britain U20 Women’s Basketball

Although similar to the others, this one is a very different since we only focused in our players, and we recorded the performance for every set pieces.

Great Britain U20 Women's game stats.

 FUTSAL

1) England Futsal

During the last two seasons I have been using the following template with two futsal teams: Manchester Futsal Club and England Futsal National Team; and sometimes people looked at me surprised and astonished, and they asked themselves: what is he writing down during the whole game? Even the referees felt weird when I asked them how many fouls? Or Which player has been booked? Maybe because nobody was used to take statistics during futsal games in this country, and they felt that I was controlling them. Even my own club said: “Master tactician: Daniel Berdejo-del-Fresno plots the miraculous comeback...” after our epic comeback against Middlesbrough Futsal Club.

But the secret will be revealed!

A real example recorded in an international game with England Futsal.

In the template we control the goals, the time-outs, the cards, the fouls and in our opinion the most important information: the time for every player on the bench and on the court, i.e. the time that the players are playing and resting. Sometimes I also take the turnovers and the steals made by every player. In a high intensity sport like futsal, a player cannot play more than 4-6 consecutives minutes, this is main reason why we control the players’ timing. Even, teams such as Spain make substitutions every 3-4 minutes in international futsal competition; therefore none of the players play more than 4 consecutive minutes, that is the golden rule. But those 4 minutes are always at 100%, if they need to ask to be changed before the 3-4 minutes because they are tired, they will do it. That is the mentality: I play 3 minutes at 100% and I am happier than playing 10 minutes at 75%.

BEACH SOCCER

1) England Beach Soccer

The template used by the England Beach Soccer National Team is very similar to the previous one. We only adapted it to the characteristics of the game (three halves and 12 minutes each half), and added a section to record the final result of every single shot.

England Beach Soccer game statistics template.

The main objective of all these templates is to give feedback to the coach during the game to make easier the decisions, but obviously, they can be analised after the game to take more conclusions, or even after three or four months.