Measuring the Dispersion of the Players

The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the concepts of dispersion in the aim of soccer analysis. A set of different measures have been proposed to identify the level of dispersion between teammates and between opponents. Based on that, a summary of the dispersion measures, definitions, interpretation and graphical visualization will be presented on this chapter. The measures of Stretch Index, Surface Area, Team Length and Team Width and lpwratio will be introduced throughout the chapter. The case studies presented involve two five-player teams in an SSG considering only the space of half pitch (68 m goal-to-goal and 52 m side-to-side) and another eleven-player team in a match considering the space of the entire field (106.744 m goal-to-goal and 66.611 m side-to-side) even though only playing in half pitch.

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