English Premier League, Spain´S La Liga and Italy´S Serie´S a – What´S Different?
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International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport 2013, 13, 773-789. English Premier League, Spain´s La Liga and Italy´s Serie´s A – What´s Different? Hugo Sarmento1,2, Antonino Pereira2, Nuno Matos3, Jorge Campaniço4, Maria T. Anguera5 and José Leitão4 1High Institute of Maia (Portugal) 2Polytechnic Institute of Viseu (Portugal) 3University of Coimbra, Centro de Estudos Biocinéticos 4University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro (Portugal) 5University of Barcelona (Spain) Abstract Our study aimed to understand which aspects are most important by coaches in the characterization of the three best European Football Leagues (English Premier League, Spain´s La Liga and Italy´s Serie´s A). The sample included 8 expert high-performance Portuguese First League football coaches. Semi-structured interviews were carried out and data were analysed through Content Analysis. The interviewed coaches believe that what distinguished the style of play in the different leagues is due essentially to: cultural factors; strategic- tactical factors; and, specific players’ skills. They considered that: the English league is characterized by a direct style of play; the Italian league continues to be characterized by the defensive tactical rigor; and, the Spanish league favors the aesthetic side of the game and having greater control over throughout the game. Our coaches felt that what mostly differentiates these teams is culturally- influenced whereby distinct ways of playing have been created through history. In addition, they also referred to strategic and tactical aspects, players’ characteristics and the coach's philosophy. Appreciating the cultural aspects that contribute to the creation of distinct playing styles may be useful for coaches who work in new clubs/cultures and want their players to adapt to his methods and improve performance. Key words: Football, Coaching, Playing style 773 1. Introduction Three of the best football leagues in the world include the English Premier League, Italy’s Serie A, and Spain’s La Liga. These three leagues have dominated both the most prestigious individual FIFA Ballon d’Or, World Football Player of the Year Award and the esteemed team trophy of the UEFA Champions League (Obserstone, 2011). Although football is considered a universal language, there are particularities that characterize the way it is practiced in several countries, which is the result of a set of historical, social and cultural aspects specific to each nation (Brown, 2008; Castelo, 2009; Hamil, Walters, & Watson, 2010; Nogueira, 2011; Wharton, 2007). Overall, the style of English football is known as “Kick and Rush” (Crolley, Hand, & Jeutter, 2000), the Italian as “Catenaccio” (Foot, 2007), and the Spanish as “Fúria Española” (Goig, 2007), depending on the form they choose to perform a game characterized by ball possession or by direct play to get to the opposing goal, but also due to the impetuosity that players put in the game itself, together with their natural ability to relate with the ball. The literature in the field of sociology and anthropology (Atherton, Turner, & Russell, 2001; Brown, 2008; Goig, 2007; Guschwan, 2007; Győri Szabó, 2011; Hamil, et al., 2010; Hargrave, 2007; McFarland, 2007; Nogueira, 2011; Rodríguez-Díaz, 2007; Stone, 2007) provides important insight into the aspects described above. Unfortunately, there is a lack of research comparing the different professional football leagues used in this study (La Liga, Premiership, and Il Calcio). The available studies that investigated the different leagues have essentially focused on: i) anthropometric data (Bloomfield, Polman, Butterfly, & O`Donoghue, 2005); ii) technical aspects (Dellal et al., 2011; Obserstone, 2011); and iii) motor activity data (Dellal et al., 2011). Although there is a vast literature (Carling, Reilly, & Williams, 2009; Carling, Williams & Reilly, 2005; Hughes, 2008) devoted to match analysis, to the best of our knowledge no studies have focused on the coach’s view on match analysis. Since coaches play a crucial role in the game, it seems pertinent focus on studies where coaches can actively participate, contributing with their knowledge and experience for a deeper understanding of the performance of players and teams. It is known that in the academic context, Sports Sciences has, for many years and still today, mostly developed their research within the positivist paradigm (Munroe- Chandler, 2005). Positivism, focus on external and measurable world events and therefore states that science can only understand what is observable and measurable by the five senses. The latter also means that anything that is subjective, since it cannot be seen or measured is not real. For instance when trying to understand the sports phenomenon, the "life" of athletes or coaches, their thoughts, perspectives, views and emotions assume a significant importance and therefore, the assumption of an objective interpretation of reality becomes difficult and incomplete. As a result, qualitative research has been gaining interest and has progressively been more used in Sport Sciences in the pursuit of a greater understanding of interiors, i.e. subjective and inter- subjective phenomenon (Dale, 1996; Munroe-Chandler, 2005). 774 O´Donoghue (2010) presents in a detailed way the main strengths for the use of this type of data in the context of sport performance. The author notes that performance analysis methods can identify some particularities in a specific context but, in others, they cannot explain them. Therefore, the use of interviews with coaches and/or athletes can be valuable to explain certain aspects of performance. Specifically in football, some authors have recognized the importance of these type of methodologies and developed their research using interviews to: i) investigate what professional coaches observe in the game and how they evaluate and intervene based on their observations (Sarmento, Pereira, Campaniço, Anguera & Leitão, 2013); ii) investigate the role of performance analysis in the coaching process of a professional soccer club and the perspectives of both professional players and coaches in relation to its use (Mackenzie & Cushion, 2013); iii) expose the views of professional coaches regarding the detected patterns of play in the teams of Manchester United, Inter Milan and F.C. Barcelona (Sarmento, 2012). However, Bishop (2008) considers that the transfer of research results in sports science to practice remains poor, with researchers being criticized for failing to study problems relevant to practitioners. This statement is most likely due to the partiality posture assumed by science, which leaves an important part of reality (i.e., interiors) mostly unacknowledged, making the transfer of theory to practice harder to apply. As such, it was our aim to develop this work using coaches who work as professionals in this area. We chose to listen to the opinion of elite football coaches in order to bridge the aforementioned limitation. We also wanted to understand which aspects in the characterization of playing styles of the different soccer leagues are the most important for coaches. The English, Italian and Spanish Leagues have been chosen for this study because they are considered by the International Federation of Football History and Statistics (IFFHS), the three strongest European Leagues of the 1st Decade of the 21st Century. In order to allow coaches to consider the wider context of the leagues they play in, the analysis focused also on the three teams - Barcelona, Inter Milan and Manchester United - that won their respective leagues in the season prior to the data collection. 2. Methods 2.1. Participants We chose 8 expert high-performance Portuguese first league football coaches (Coach 1 to Coach 8) with a professional experience (as first coach) ranging from 2 to 30 years (14.9 ± 8.6 years). All coaches, who were initially selected to participate in the study and who accepted the invitation, were coaching professionally at the time the interviews were taken, and had worked at some point in their careers as Head coaches in the Portuguese League. Because of the in-depth character of each interview, the interpretational nature of the analysis, and the number of the teams in the first league (n=16), 8 coaches were considered representative and met the objectives of the study, as well as the criteria of 775 expert selection (previous experience as Head coach in the first Portuguese League; UEFA Pro licensed coach). 2.2. Instruments We used semi-structured interviews to collect the data (Bardin, 2008; Flick, 2005); the advantages of using this type of interview are diverse when compared to other methods of data collection (Flick, 2005; Quivy & Campenhoudt, 2005). The interview guide was designed to identify the most relevant issues for the coach so that a further in-depth exploration could be done. The certification of the content validity of the interview was done according to common qualitative research methods (Strauss & Corbin, 1990). More specifically, it was attained after preparation and discussion of previous drafts of the transcript, based on the following steps: i) preparation of first draft of the transcript based on the specific aims of the study and available literature (Castelo, 2009; Carling et al., 2005; Knudsson & Morrison, 2002); ii) evaluation of the interview transcripts by three senior researchers in sports pedagogy, who have substantial experience with qualitative methods; iii) discussion of findings based on the presented suggestions