Dear Nebojsa

What do you mean by contacts? why did you use absolute value? ball possession is always positive so you don't have to consider the absolute value.

European futbol?

Australian rules football? 

American football? 

Does possession = touches?

Why |x| ?  Did you mean "actual"

Define your terms

Dear Jamal,

Contact with the ball are achieved while performing a variety of technical and tactical elements performed by the player ( s)  during the racing activities. Here I mean  various dribblings , passing , shots ...

Due to the limited number of characters permitted (150 )  I shortened the  originally conceived  question  . I am interested in basic descriptive statistics ( Max . , Min . , Average , SD and CV % ) for  ball possession and contact with the ball during the football match . In my earlier researches, I have dealt with the characteristics of football games of medalists at the World  Championship 2010. I am interested in the existence of possible differences between the observed Representations in these variables . I also have results  for  the correlation  of the mentioned characteristics of football game. I wonder if anyone investigated  same variables  to  compare the results .

I think it would be interesting to follow these features of football game for a longer period in order to determine their trend.

Dear Gerry ,

 My question related to  world football = soccer . Possession and contact with the ball are not the same . One and most common way of  ball  possession  of the football players  in a  team is when the player  receives the ball  from his teammate ( passing the ball ) . Contact with the ball  can be exercised  by  performing  of ball keeping  , dribbling ... Here I mean quantified  ball possessions  and contact with the ball  on football matches ( descriptive statistics ) .

Dear Nebojska,

I think there aren't. The sports matches and games are interaction and a bunch of variability.

Dear Nebojša,

Yes, there is some evidence about that specific performance indicators. Please, check the following references:

Dellal. A., Chamari, K., Wong, D. P., Ahmaidi, S., Keller, D., Barros, R., Bisciotti, G. N., & Carling, C. (2011). Comparison of physical and technical performance in European soccer match.-play: FA Premier League and La Liga. European Journal of Sport Science, 11(1), 51-59.

Lago, C. (2009). The influence of match location, quality of opposition, and match status on possession strategies in professional association football. Journal of Sports Sciences, 27, 1463-1469. doi: 10.1080/02640410903131681

Lago, C., & Martín, R. (2007). Determinants of possession of the ball in soccer. Journal of Sports Sciences, 25, 969-974. doi: 10.1080/02640410600944626

Lago-Peñas, C., & Dellal, A. (2010). Ball possession strategies in elite soccer according to the evolution of the match-score: The influence of situational variables. Journal of Human Kinetics, 25, 93-100. doi: 10.2478/v10078-010-0036-z

Furthermore, we have quantified the number of ball contacts in relation to the duration of ball possession in small-sided games. However, this methodology was never used in elite soccer during official matches. Here's the reference:

Almeida, C. H., Ferreira, A. P., & Volossovitch, A. (2012). Manipulating task constraints in small-sided soccer games: Performance analysis and practical implications. The Open Sports Sciences Journal, 5, 174-180.

Best wishes,

CA

Dear Mohammad,

I agree that sports matches and games are interaction and a bunch of variability.

I know that the ball possession and contact with the ball are two different characteristics of  football game.

I personally researched this topic. In support of this here are some results :

On the average pro game there are 637 ball possessions and 1436 ball contacts. Pro player the average number of ball possessions is 57,9 and an average number of ball contacts of  130,5. There were calculated descriptive characteristics of distribution. The maximum evidenced number of ball possessions is 696, and the number of ball contacts is 1.722 and those were achieved on the match  with the Representation of Switzerland , the only match that the Representation of Spain lost on this Championship. The minimum value of ball possession is 533, and the ball contact is 1242.

Kind regards,

Dear Carlos,

Thank you for the work that you recommended  which is related to the subject of my research. Before our email correspondence I came into contact with the distinguished professor Carlos Lago and I got from him personally works. I would like to thank him for this publicly. There is a difference in the way of data collection in studies of prof. Carlos Lago, and my researches. Prof . Carlos Lago uses the multiple camera-match analysis systems from various manufacturers, and I use techniques of observation of  DVD  recordings and frequencies recorded in the protocol of observation. It would be interesting to compare our results if we have the same pattern and the same teams of competition. I use the results of  numerical values  of ball possession  and contacts with the ball in the formula for calculating the index contacts. Using  this formula I calculate how great is the deviation from the theoretically simplest games by the observed teams, the lines in a team and individuals. Theoretically, the simplest way is to play with  one ball contact , so-called " first pass ". The formula is Ki=k / p -1. Ki is the  contact index, k is  contact  with the ball,  p  is ball possession, a is  theoretical value  and  1 is the  theoratically  value  of the  simplest game concerning  the number of contacts with the  ball by one ball  possession.

Kind regards,

Nebojša

Dear,

       In consideration of the ball possession and contacts with the ball of the football players during the competitive activities , I asked myself what comes first , the ball possession or the contact with the ball. In order to achieve the ball possession it is necessary to have contact with the ball, but in order to make contact with the ball, it is necessary that the player is in ball possession. This dilemma is reminiscent of a famous philosophical dilemma what is older the chicken or the egg. It would be interesting for the theory of football game that the representatives of the so-called "Queen of Sciences' of Philosophy engage and reflect on this dilemma and to give their judgment and contribution to its elucidation.

Dear Nebojsa,

I hope I understood correctly the topic, otherwise please excuse my intervention and forget about it.

I'd differ ball possession from contact basing on a quality parameter of the touch. If you get in contact with the ball it's not given you're possessing it, as it could be an interception, deviation, odd control, and so on. So in my humble opinion, on a mathematical point of view, as a first approach, I'd speak about effective posession of the ball when the mean speed of the ball (in a limited amount of time, when the ball is close to the player) is almost equal to the speed (and direction) of the man carring it.

For first touch pass I would put a yes/no control based on the success of the pass (yes: direction, speed of pass, height, [...] are correct. No: the other cases; this for avoiding that reception mistakes false the count). If the answer is no, I'd stop talking about posession in the exact moment when the ball leaves the foot of the passer.

kind regards,

Dear David,

 First of all I  would like to thank  you for your excellent understanding  of the issue,  and for  you great feeling of football game. I thank you in my name and in the name of football. I hope that a part of younger and older  colleagues, engaged in  football research,  will agree with me .

 With your comments, answers and football vision,  you  give  us, from the perspective of  a mathematician,  new ideas for   football exploring  and how to  gain  new insights and a better understanding of developments on the  football field during the racing activities. It sound strange but with your answer you opened new questions that are now  awaiting a response.

My laboratory, in which I   make my researches concerning   football topic   consists of  a TV, a laptop,  DVD records, notebook and pencil.  I am  recording  , after that I observe  the shots and  analysis  them  on the basis of data collected.  To study the characteristics that you mentioned , especially the speed of movement of the players and the ball, there are required  more qualitative measurement instruments . I suppose that some of my colleagues around the world have or could  get such instruments  to research  the aforementioned characteristics.

In the previous answer I presented my dilemma that arose during the research of ball possession and contacts with the ball, which refers to the question of what is the first : ball  possession  or  contact with the ball . It also appeared to me an association of the famous philosophical  dilemma what is older the chicken or the egg, and for which the response is still missing.

I agree with you that the ball possession and contact wit the ball have  different  football game characteristics. I'll give the answer how  I   resolved this issue in my previous researches. In the following example, important to us is  player B. When  the football  player A passes the ball to the  player B and player B play (pass the ball) to player C,  player B was (briefly several fractions of a second) in possession, at the same time he achieved one contact with the ball. Second situation, the player A pass  the ball to  player B, and player B receives the ball (we do not  pay attention to the part of the body and the type of ball reception ), and then  player B pass the ball to teammate C. In all  my researches  I have  recorded this  as one  ball possession  and as two contacts with the ball . The third situation, the focus is on  player B. Player A passes the ball to player B and player B receives the ball  (do not pay attention to the part of the body and the type of ball reception), one dribble (second contact) and after that player B pass the ball to his  teammate (third contact with the ball).

In this situation I've recorded  this as one  ball possession and three contacts with the ball, etc. In my previous researches the  maximum number of ball contacts per one football  player  showed in figures was 12 ball contacts.  I recorded this result by the football player of  FC  "Barcelona" Messi on  the final matches of the Champions League in the season 2008/2009 .

In one of my newer researches the attention has been focused on the recording of ball possession, contact with the ball and contact index in the game of medal winners on the World Championship 2010. It was expected due to the placement of the teams, that there are no statistically signifi cant differences in the observed characteristics of the football game. A total of 21 matches were observed. Based on the results obtained by statistical analysis of the data collected using the Kruskal Wallis test, it can be concluded that there are significant differences in the representation of ball possession (p=0.005) and by contact with the ball (p=0.005), but in contact index (p=0,129) were no statistically significant differences observed in the game of the observed national teams. Testing of differences between pairs of teams Mann Whitney test showed that between the teams of Spain and the Netherlands, there was no statistically significant difference in all three variables (p 0.05). Between teams of Spain and Germany were found statistically signifi cant differences in ball possession and ball contact.

The ball possession quantifies and  gives the information about how many times the player of one team get the ball (came into its possession) cooperating with teammates or by mistake in ball passing to the opposing team.

Contacts (touching) with the ball were recorded during each ball possession of all the players in one team in meaningful actions. The situations of game interruptions are not even recorded as possession neither as ball contact because the rules of the game stipulate that they have to be performed with one ball touch and the players do not have the freedom to decide with how many ball touches they will perform the game interruption (corner, free kick and penalty) . The situations that occasionally occures on football matches so called ’’cracker balls’’, in which the will and the ideas of the players do not determine were the ball will go, were also not recorded as ball possession neither as ball contact.

The idea researching  the  ball possession  and the ball contacts  came to me  7-8 years ago when I was thinking about rotation of the earth around the sun !? As it is known, the earth does not rotate  around the sun along a path of circular shape proper , on the contrary, this path is elliptical in shape.  So there is a certain deviation from the ideal circular path . Researchers involved in research of such cosmos  phenomenon  have calculated the discrepancy. Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543), a native Pole, the founder of modern astronomy, proved that the earth is  a sphere which rotate  around the sun. Johan Kepler (1571-1630) a German astronomer proved that the planetary orbits are not perfect circles as previously thought.

In the development of human thought  ideals had, have  and I hope will have in the future an important role. I wondered how much is the deviation  in modern football   relative to the  theoretically simplest games (IDEAL) concerning the  number of contacts with the ball during one ball  possession. Theoretically, the simplest way is  to play with one contact with the ball and one  ball possession so called ‘’First ball ‘’.  To get the answer to  my question that is being  bothering me in my research I use the formula Ki = K / P-1 (I already mentioned this and   explained it  in one of my  earlier answer to this question).

Kind regards