This study explored how varying the number of creative opponents affects youth players' performance during football small-sided games (SSGs). Initially, 60 players from 3 different age groups with n = 20 in each (under-9, U9; under-11, U11; and under-13, U13) were tested during SSGs to rank them according to their creative potential. Based on these rankings, four players shown to possess with a medium creative potential were assigned to the intermediate team for each age group. This team competed against a team on which players with high creative potential were progressively included (from one to finally all four players, 1C to 4C) during a 4-a-side plus goalkeeper SSG. The results showed that U9 players increased the individual space explored when facing more creative opponents (p =.012), while the U11 (p =.026) and U13 (p
CITATION STYLE
Santos, S., Coutinho, D., Gonçalves, B., & Sampaio, J. (2023). How many creatives are enough? Exploring how manipulating the number of creative players in the opposing team impacts footballers’ performance during small-sided games. Human Movement Science, 87. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.humov.2022.103043
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