Wildcard players during positional games

Abstract

The purpose of this paper was to study the kinematic demands imposed on wildcard and regular players in addition to comparing the demand imposed on wildcards in different positional games (PG; 4v4+3, 5v5+3, 7v7+3 and 8v8+3). Kinematic demand was monitored using 10 Hz GPS devices. The study participants were 25 soccer players (20.5 ± 1.8 years, 178.4 ± 6.6 cm, 69.7 ± 6.1 kg) from the reserve squad of a Spanish 1st Division club during the 2015-2016 season. The variables analyzed were: distance covered per minute (m·min-1), high speed running (>19.8 km·h-1, m·min-1), sprinting (>25.2 km·h-1, m·min-1), the number of intense accelerations (>3 m·s2, n·min-1), the number of intense decelerations ( 25.5 W·kg-1; m·min-1). The wildcard players in the PGs studied experienced some demands with differences ranging from possible to almost certain with respect to the regular players in all the PG studied. (d: -0.18 ± 0.27 to -2.49 ± 0.37). The results of this study indicate that players should be chosen with care for the wildcard role since the demands on them are lower with respect to regular players and vary depending on the PG performed.