It`s common to believe that success in football depends on the speed at which problems are solved: it is accepted that players need to be faster, shoot with greater speeds, dribble faster or pass the ball with higher speeds. We have already verified (e.g. Vicente et al., 2010; Vicente et al., 2011) that in the feint and in the penalty kick in football there is a relation between the velocity of the stimulus and the response time: higher stimulus velocity tend to involve higher response times and vice-versa. Does the same occur in a passing situation in football where players also need to take into account other players actions (teammates and opponents) to act? The aim of this study was to verify whether a correlation exists between the velocity of the stimulus in a passing situation in football and the player`s response. Methods: We`ve used a software (MeSiR1.2) designed to measure the relation between the velocity of the stimulus and the time to respond it. In a very simplified way, the test was based on a stimulus that consisted on a defender that moved from the center of the screen to each side (overcoming 3 meters in a real football field) at different velocities (5, 3 and 1 meter per seconds) randomly. The players (45 university football players) had to press one of six matching letters in the keyboard previously known for six possible passing ball velocities (Q(10km/h), W(30km/h) and E(50km/h) for left, and I(10km/h), O(30km/h) and P(50km/h) for right) for 24 trials. Each test data was automatically collected by the software which provided the response time (and correspondent ball velocity) to each stimulus velocity. Results: From the 1080 trials performed, the results showed that for the fastest stimulus the average response time was 280 milliseconds; for the 3m/s velocity players took in average 328ms to respond, and for the slowest stimulus the average time to respond was 343ms. Players choose the faster ball velocity in 79% of the fastest stimulus, and 84% of the times the slowest ball speed in the parallel slowest stimulus. Discussion: The results showed that the stimulus velocity influenced the response time and the hypothetic passing ball velocity. As the stimulus was faster or slower, the response was also faster or slower respectively; also as the stimulus was faster or slower, the ball velocity chosen was also faster or slower. This may suggest, as indicated by ecological studies that we are still carrying out, that in passing in football where players are permanently exchanging stimulus with the opponents and teammates in order to get advantage over the first ones and trying to coordinate to the second ones, players should be trained to relate with the opponents and teammates being aware that they can influence their actions and their response time.
© Copyright 2012 17th Annual Congress of the European College of Sport Science (ECSS), Bruges, 4. -7. July 2012. Veröffentlicht von Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.