The Effect of the COVID-19 Lockdown on the Position-Specific Match Running Performance of Professional Football Players; Preliminary Observational Study

Damir Sekulic; Sime Versic; Andrew Decelis; Jose Castro-Piñero; Dejan Javorac; Goran Dimitric; Kemal Idrizovic; Igor Jukic; Toni Modric

doi:10.3390/ijerph182212221

The Effect of the COVID-19 Lockdown on the Position-Specific Match Running Performance of Professional Football Players; Preliminary Observational Study

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021 Nov 21;18(22):12221. doi: 10.3390/ijerph182212221.

Authors

Damir Sekulic¹, Sime Versic^{1

2}, Andrew Decelis³, Jose Castro-Piñero^{4

5}, Dejan Javorac⁶, Goran Dimitric⁶, Kemal Idrizovic⁷, Igor Jukic⁸, Toni Modric¹

Affiliations

¹ Faculty of Kinesiology, University of Split, 21000 Split, Croatia.
² HNK Hajduk, 21000 Split, Croatia.
³ Institute for Physical Education and Sport, Faculty of Education, University of Malta, MSD 2080 Msida, Malta.
⁴ GALENO Research Group, Department of Physical Education, Faculty of Education Sciences, University of Cádiz, Avenida República Saharaui s/n, 11519 Puerto Real, Spain.
⁵ Instituto de Investigación e Innovación Biomédica de Cádiz (INiBICA), 11009 Cádiz, Spain.
⁶ Faculty of Sport and Physical Education, University of Novi Sad, 21000 Novi Sad, Serbia.
⁷ Faculty for Sport and Physical Education, University of Montenegro, 81400 Niksic, Montenegro.
⁸ Faculty of Kinesiology, University of Zagreb, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia.

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic interrupted professional football in the 2019/2020 season, and football experts anticipate that the consequences of lockdown measures will negatively affect the physical performance of players once competition restarts. This study aimed to evaluate position-specific match running performance (MRP) to determine the effect of COVID-19 lockdowns on the physical performance of professional football players. Players' MRPs (n = 124) were observed in matches before and after the COVID-19 lockdown in the 2019/2020 season of the highest level of national competition in Croatia and were classified according to player position: central defenders (CD; n = 42), fullbacks (FB; n = 20), midfielders (MF; n = 46), and forwards (FW; n = 16). The MRPs were measured using Global Positioning System, and included the total distance covered, low-intensity running (≤14.3 km/h), running (14.4-19.7 km/h), high-intensity running (≥19.8 km/h), total accelerations (>0.5 m/s²), high-intensity accelerations (>3 m/s²), total decelerations (less than -0.5 m/s²), and high-intensity decelerations (less than -3 m/s²). The results indicated that, in matches after the COVID-19 lockdown, (i) CDs and FBs featured lower running and high-intensity running (t-value: from 2.05 to 3.51; all p < 0.05; moderate to large effect sizes), (ii) MFs covered a greater distance in low-intensity running and achieved a lower number of total accelerations, and total and high-intensity decelerations (t-value: from -3.54 to 2.46; all p < 0.05, moderate to large effect sizes), and (iii) FWs featured lower high-intensity running (t-value = 2.66, p = 0.02, large effect size). These findings demonstrate that the physical performances of football players from the Croatian first division significantly decreased in matches after the COVID-19 lockdown. A combination of inadequate adaptation to football-specific match demands and a crowded schedule after the competition was restarted most likely resulted in such an effect.

Keywords: SARS-CoV-2; match demands; match running performance; soccer.

Publication types

Observational Study
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Athletic Performance*
COVID-19*
Communicable Disease Control
Geographic Information Systems
Humans
Pandemics
Running*
SARS-CoV-2
Soccer*

Abstract

Publication types

MeSH terms

Grants and funding