Soccer Specific Fitness Differences Across the Common Playing Position Players

As a complex team sport, success in soccer relies on individuals’ performance, collective performance, and most importantly on team performance. In soccer, players are usually assigned to a specific position based on the demands of the position and the corresponding qualities of the players. The performance factors are varied and interrelated. As such, whether speed, change-of-direction-speed (CODS) and repeated sprinting ability (RSA) are used to discriminate different position players is not well-established. The purpose of this study was to examine how different position players are different against these parameters. The study participants included 88 soccer players at the Ethiopian National Soccer League classified into six playing positions such as centerbacks, fullbacks, holding-midfielders, attacking-midfielders, outside-midfielders and strikers. The participant players speed, CODS and RSA were measured weekly for about five weeks. The authors analyzed the collected data using one-way ANOVA and Games-Howell multiple comparisons. Results indicated that the position discriminating power of the three measures, including speed, CODS and RSA was found minimal. Among the different position players, only outside-midfielders were significantly higher performers with these qualities measured. Therefore, it was concluded that the performance difference in speed, CODS and RSA among the six position players is not a good discriminator, except for outside-midfielders, who outperformed all other position players (excluding the fullbacks) with the studied parameters.