Coach behaviour analysis within elite youth soccer

Successful performance in Association Football is typically viewed as an expression of a purposeful collective synergy between the individual performances within each team ( Duarte et al. , 2012a ). Indeed, the collective performance of football teams needs to be regarded as more than the sum of individual aggregated performances. Evidence is beginning to reveal that the player&s;s motion dynamics on the field can functionally influence the spatial-temporal movement characteristics of neighbouring teammates and opponents, creating a purposeful aggregation during specific performance sub-phases ( Passos et al. , 2011 ; Duarte et al. , 2012b ). Some performance constraints, however, such as strategic behaviours related with the playing methods, are likely to influence the way teammates synchronise their on-field behaviours ( Travassos et al. , 2012 ). For example, the differences found on interpersonal coordination observed for lateral and longitudinal displacements between basketball ( Bourbousson et al. , 2010 ) and futsal players ( Travassos et al. , 2011 ) can be grounded on the distinct defensive playing methods used in each study.