Most demanding passages in elite futsal: An isolated or a repeat situation?

Abstract

The main purpose of this research was to examine not only the most demanding passages (MDP) of elite futsal matches through different external load variables: total distance covered (TD), distance covered at high-speed running (HSR), metres covered above 0.02 Player Load (PL), number of high-intensity accelerations (ACC) and decelerations (DEC); but also to analyse whether they may be repeated in the course of a single match for a single player. Data from one professional futsal player were collected using a local positioning system from a total of twelve official matches of the 1st Division of the Liga Nacional de Futbol Sala (LNFS) during 2018-2019. The rolling average method was used for all variables, using a one-minute time window. Data were re-analysed to identify the very high demanding passages (VHDPs; >90% of the mean of the three top MDP of all matches) and the high demanding passages (HDPs; 80%-90% of the mean of the three top MDP of all matches). The results showed that the VHDPs and HDPs in a single match did not present as an isolated situation. TD and ACC were the two most demanding variables in terms of repetition of HDPs and VHDPs.