Enhancing Intuitive and Coordinated Decision-Making in Soccer

From Research to the Field within the 4P Strategy

Gilles Kermarrec

1,2

and Loic Plassart

1,2

Research Center for Education, Learning and Didactics, UEB University, Brest, France

European Center for Virtual Reality, Plouzané, France

Keywords: Naturalistic Decision-Making, Intuition, Coordination, Training, Small-Sided Games, Implicit Vs Explicit

Learning, Soccer.

Abstract: Since few years decision-making in team sports has been studied through a Naturalistic Decision-Making

(NDM) approach and advances from research on team sports performance led to pedagogical principles and

to tactical skills training strategies. Considering the need for coordinated and intuitive decision-making,

implications from NDM framework are discussed according to literature on tactical skills training in team

sports. For some years Small-Sided Games seems to be approved by a large majority of coach and

researchers. Nevertheless, while the Teaching-Games-For-Understanding’s (TGFU) pedagogical model

focused on explicit learning, the Led-Constraints approach led to implicit learning. A significant proposition

from our program of work is that there is a need for a wide range of decision-making processes in team

sports, so that a tactical skills training strategy should be based on a blend of implicit and explicit learning.

In this perspective, the 4P strategy (i.e., Positioning; Practicing; Picturing; Post-analysing) is a four-step-

strategy designed by scientists and coaches in soccer. An empirical study has been conducted within

technological artefacts embedded into the 4P strategy. Results showed that youth players benefited from

technological aids because they highlight relevant configurations of play and help to share “pictures” during

small-sided games. This exploratory study suggested that the whole 4P strategy was well suited for intuitive

and coordinated decision-making enhancement.

1 INTRODUCTION

In recent times, decision-making in a sport setting

began to be studied through a Naturalistic Decision-

Making (NDM) approach (e.g., Macquet, 2009). The

Naturalistic Decision-Making paradigm (Klein,

1998-2008) contributed to improve the

understanding about how people make choices and

coordinate themselves in military, nuclear power,

aviation, human management, economic or sports

settings. For that, NDM examines the ways in which

experts in real-world contexts, alone or in a team,

identify and assess situations, make decisions and

coordinate their actions.

In team sports, players have to deal with

complex, uncertain, dynamic environments; they

have to be able to make decision based on their own

actions and on the movements of other players.

Thus, appropriate decisions are based on changes on

relevant informational cues considering the

dynamics of the teammates/opponents behaviours.

In line with NDM advances, we made the

assumption that these kinds of decisions rely on

recognition and sharing of spatiotemporal

configurations.

This communication is organized into four parts.

First, we overview findings from our research on

team performances from the NDM perspective. The

results provide a rationale for considering the need

for Coordinated and Intuitive Decision-Making in

team sports, and have implications for designing

decision-making training. Second, previous works

on tactical skills training are discussed. While

Teaching-Games-for-Understanding approach

(TGfU) mainly focused on explicit learning, the

Ecological Dynamic approach argued that team

games training could benefit from practicing and

implicit learning. We consider that both of these

theoretical and practical perspectives provide

precious rationales for implementing training

programs based on Small-Sided Games (SSG) in

soccer, and that they could be complemented thanks

to the NDM advances in team sports. Third, these

insights lead scientists and practitioners to design the

Kermarrec, G. and Plassart, L..

Enhancing Intuitive and Coordinated Decision-Making in Soccer - From Research to the Field within the 4P Strategy.

In Proceedings of the 3rd International Congress on Sport Sciences Research and Technology Support (icSPORTS 2015), pages 325-333

ISBN: 978-989-758-159-5

325

4P strategy, the principles of which are presented

and illustrated. Fourth, the 4P tactical skills training

strategy has been experimented in four soccer

schools using technological artefacts, and some

empirical results are presented and briefly discussed.

2 THE NDM PERSPECTIVE FOR

TACTICAL SKILLS ANALYSIS

IN TEAM SPORTS

In NDM perspective, Recognition-Primed Decision

(RPD) and Team Situation Awareness (TSA) are

well-known models of expertise in complex and

dynamic environments.

2.1 Tactical Skills and Intuitive

Decision-making: Advances from

the RPD Model

In the NDM approach, decision-making is seen as

recognition of spatiotemporal configuration, and is

called intuitive decision-making. Intuitive decision-

making involves a fast and non-conscious process.

The intuitive decision-making is an alternative to the

rationalistic linear information-processing model.

Rationalistic decision-making refers to a relatively

slow and conscious process, so that it could not be

effective in many sport situations.

Klein (1998-2008) has shown that experts in

dynamic situations do not tend to make decisions

based on rational deductions or exhaustive analyses

of expectancies. Contrariwise, intuitive decision-

making supposed that people confronted with

uncertainty and time pressure are able to perceived

relevant cues or salient features in the context, to

recognize the configuration of a situation as familiar

or typical, helping them to adjust their behaviour to

the particular conditions of the environment. The

Recognition-Primed Decision model suggests three

levels of experiencing the situation: simple matching

the situation is quickly perceived as familiar;

diagnosis when the situation is perceived to be

incongruous; simulation when an expert perceives

the situation as typical and evaluates first or second

option through mental simulation before

implementing a course of action.

RPD models started to be applied also in sport

settings over the last years (for a brief review, see

Kermarrec and Bossard, 2014). Most of the studies

used a video-based simulated methodology and a

“first person approach” in a competitive setting. The

results showed that experts in sport games recognize

configuration of a play and made decisions based on

previous experiences: a) they perceived the most

salient informational cues of a situation and matched

them together to recognized typical configurations

of play; b) they tend to use a simple match

mechanism and take the first option when they

assessed the situations as familiar; c) when players

did not assess the situation as familiar, two or three

options were diagnosed; d) when players did not feel

urgency, they took time to simulate the situation:

especially defenders or goalkeeper anticipated

opponents’ options from an external “third person”

viewpoint, or from an internal “first person”

viewpoint. This process allows him or her to

imagine how effective the option will be in the

current situation.

Finally, empirical studies pointed out evidences

for intuitive decision-making used by experts in

team sports. In other words, according to NDM

approach, tactical skills rely on recognition of

configurations of play. In next section we examine

teammates influences and the need to share the same

configuration of play in order to make coordinated

decision-making.

2.2 Tactical Skills and Coordinated

Decision-making: Advances from

the TSA Model

Several researchers argued that team performance

requires a high degree of coordination (Salas and al.,

2008; Eccles and Tenenbaum, 2004, 2007). Thus,

NDM line of research on team performances has

shown the interest of the TSA model to better

understand such a complex phenomenon.

In dynamic (i.e. complex and indeterminate)

situations like most team games interactions,

coordination between teammates cannot be reduced

to shared knowledge constructed before the course

of action. Team members have to share perceptions,

judgements, expectations during the on-going

situation. Considering that what is shared could be

“contextual”, some researchers have developed

conceptual and methodological frameworks for

describing and assessing the dynamic of

coordination. In this regard, the notion of situation

awareness was extended to study coordination in

teams. Endsley (1995)

defined Situation Awareness

as the perception of the elements in the context, the

understanding of their meaning, and the projection

of their role in the near future. SA is a “picture” of a

situation to which it refers (Macquet and Stanton,

2014). Over the past few years, Team Situation

Awareness (TSA) has emerged as a major concept in

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research dedicated to study coordination among

members of the same team. Both of quantitative and

qualitative methods were employed and TSA was

assessed with a particular focus on the shared

contents, on the forms of sharing that appeared

during real-time activity, and on the sharing

processes.

One of our recent studies in Handball (De

Keukelaere, and al., 2013)

was conducted on the

TSA perspective. Behavioural data from six elite

players during offensive phases were recorded and

supplemented by verbal data collected during video-

cued recall interviews after the game. Content

analysis was conducted. The results showed that the

athletes alternated between two modes of

coordination. In some cases, a pre-established plan

was followed-up, based on shared content or

“sharedness” (e.g. the routines or tactics that were

reinforced during training). Most of the time, these

shared content have to be adjusted at the end of the

course of action. In other cases, performances

needed a real-time adaptation to the context of

action. “Context sharing” during the course of action

is based on a dynamic process of sharing a

configuration of a play. Complementary, many

sharing processes such as inquiry or surveying,

verifying or monitoring, displaying, masking or

resisting authorized members of team to adjust their

own decision to ones’ decision, or to influence ones’

decision.

These studies elicited the alternative role of

knowledge sharedness (as a “static product”) and

configuration of a play sharing (as a “dynamic

process”). Considering that sharedness is rarely

sufficient and completely pre-established before

team performance, most of the recent studies pointed

out that training methods have to develop further in

the direction of team adaptation (Salas and al.,

2007). Thus team-training strategies should target

“team work” rather than “task work” (id.). Whereas

task work consisted essentially in pre-briefing, post-

briefing, team work emphases the role of practice

and the need for sharing in the course of action. In

this perspective tactical skills training in team sports

could consist in involving the capabilities for players

to recognize and share the same configurations of

play during the on-going situation.

To conclude this brief report on advances from

the NDM perspective, we suggest that tactical skills

training strategies should consider both of individual

and collective capabilities. Thus, in order to develop

intuitive and coordinated decision-making, empirical

findings lead us to focus on configuration of play

recognition and sharing.

3 TACTICAL SKILLS TRAINING

IN TEAM SPORTS: A BRIEF

OVERVIEW

Most of the decision-making training programs

could be placed along the implicit / explicit learning

continuum (Raab, 2007). Number of these programs

offers a large set of arguments for the interest of

small-sided games (SSG) especially for tactical

skills training in soccer. Thus, SSGs are plebiscited

in both of the Teaching Games for Understanding

framework and in the Constraints-Led Approach.

SSG is not only a reduced game, but also we

consider it as a combination of coaches’ objective

and task constraints: “space (e.g., the nature of the

playing surface, playing area dimensions), time (e.g.,

time span of matches, time to attain a sub-objective

of the match), players (e.g., number of players in

each team, number of teams, roles of players),

equipment (e.g., size and number of goals and balls),

and intrapersonal and interpersonal coordination

(e.g., limbs allowed to contact the ball or players

allowed to pass the ball)”. We also argue that SSG

could be well-suited for configuration of play

recognition and sharing, in line with the NDM

perspectives.

3.1 TGFU and Explicit Learning

The Teaching Games for Understanding approach

(TGFU) is one of the most validated approaches to

tactical training. Key component of the TGFU

approach are: a) practicing authentic reduced games;

b) teaching in an explicit way. Based on the

assumption that tactical knowledge should be

developed before skills, TGFU was based on full

playing games or on modified or reduced games.

Coaches frequently stop the play and help players

thanks to questions, debates, and verbalizations’

artefacts, so that TGFU should promote explicit

learning (Kirk and Mc Phail, 2002).

Thus, TGfU was extended in a constructivist

perspective (Grehaigne, Godbut and Bouthier,

2001). First, SSG should be a reduced but an

authentic game from the players’ viewpoint. Second,

teacher role is considered as essential in order to

help (e.g. in analysing, debating) players in

identifying configurations of play and appropriate

responses (i.e. knowledge or rules that could be

verbalized by the players). The explicit learning

process implies constant interactions between the

subject and the environment.

Nevertheless, the TGfU approach has some

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limitations (Chow, et al., 2007), especially when

researchers systematically examined the

effectiveness of this pedagogical method, or

considered that “tactical skills are not verbal skills”

(Araujo et al., 2010).

3.2 Constraints-Led Approach and

Implicit Learning

The use of small-sided games in soccer is viewed as

an archetype of the constraints-led approach (CLA)

of training (Davids and al., 2013). The manipulation

of human and environmental constraints is supposed

to shape players behaviours, in small-sided

conditioned games (SSCG). At present, effects of

SSCGs constraints on physiological and technical

capabilities have been extensively investigated in the

literature (id.). Recently, some authors demonstrated

that SSCGs could enhance individual and collective

tactical skills (Travassos and al., 2014). The

ecological dynamics (ED) model underpinned the

CLA and argued that decision-making behaviours

emerge from the interactions of individuals with

environmental constraints (Araujo, Davids and

Hristovski, 2006).

In this perspective, SSCGs promote implicit

learning (i.e. behaviours emergence within actions

of individual players or also within interpersonal

interactions between players). Previous idea has

major implications for designing representative

practice tasks in team sports (id.). Representative

design is a concept initially proposed by Egon

Brunswik (1956). It means that training tasks need

to represent the competitive environment so that

learners can learn credible action. In other words

design of practice tasks need to represent

opportunities to act, as the players would in

competitive environment (Travassos and al., 2013).

Nevertheless, it is not clear how and why players

modified their behaviour in SSCGs. Does

behaviours’ changes supported within a major

tactical involvement, and changes in decision-

making processes? Which constraint could provide

effect on decision-making learning? How coaches

could design SSGs aiming at involving rapid,

spontaneous and accurate decision-making? Thus,

there is a need for a better understanding of the

effects of task’s constraints on decision-making

learning.

Despite links have been pointed between TGfU

and LCA (Chow, et al., 2007), we pointed

differences if considering the learning process.

According to TGFU pedagogical aids in SSG are

relevant for explicit learning, while according to

CLA practicing SSG is supposed to enhance implicit

learning. Both of these bodies of work suggest that

SSG provide learners many occasions to adapt their

actions and decisions through continuous on-going

interactions with teammates and opponents and

other task constraints. In line with NDM advances

we can argue that the structure (task constraints) and

organization (pedagogical artefacts) of SSG can to

be designed in a whole tactical skills training

strategy aiming at sustaining both of explicit and

implicit learning.

Based on this assumption, the 4P strategy was

designed for enhancing intuitive and coordinated

decision-making in soccer.

4 ENHANCING INTUITIVE AND

COORDINATED

DECISION-MAKING: THE 4P

STRATEGY

Despite many studies emphasise the interest of the

NDM approach to better understand the mechanism

underlying expertise in team sports, very few have

inspired decision-making training tools in a sports

setting (e.g. Mascarenhas and al., 2005)

. In team

sports, experts should be able to immediately match

the situation, and to quickly share the sense of the

situation. That’s why in team sport training,

decision-making should be trained to be intuitive

and coordinated. Small group of players should be

trained to recognize and share configurations of

play. It can be noted that earlier application of an

intuitive decision-making approach have been

developed based on the Ecological Rationality

perspective (Raab, 2007). SMART (Situation Model

of Anticipated Response consequences of Tactical

Training) is a pedagogical model that promotes the

use of implicit and explicit learning depending on

the complexity of the situation.

According to Klein (1998) intuitive decision-

making should be trained through four key ways: a)

engaging in practice; b) compiling extensive

experiences; c) obtaining accurate and quick

feedbacks; d) reviewing prior experiences and

learning from mistakes. Complementary, Hogarth

(2001)

has developed a learning approach to

intuition. First, environments in which intuitions are

trained need to be representative for the

environments in which intuitions are supposed to be

applied. Second, he highlighted the role of feedback

that should be speedy, accurate and relevant. He

pointed out that learners do not need explicit

feedback, explanations, or conscious awareness of

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the on-going learning situation. Hogarth’s

assumptions have been widely accepted in the field

of intuition research (Kahneman and Klein, 2009)

Theoretically, intuitive decision-making claims for

implicit learning. Nevertheless, practically, it is

difficult to separate implicit from explicit learning

within learners’ experiences in training program, and

the role of explicit feedback in decision-making

training is not clear. In naturalistic training

environment, we argued that coaches should use a

wide range of artefacts for decision-making training,

including both of implicit and explicit feedbacks.

In line with this advances, sport scientists and

professional coaches in soccer designed the 4P

strategy. It’s a four-step-strategy: a) Positioning; b)

Practicing; c) Picturing; e) Post-analysing.

4.1 Positioning the Training Device:

Prebriefing

Positioning the training device within a real

performance context consists in introducing a

tactical objective in line with team “story”. In other

words coaches should use prebriefing as a way

toward sensemaking.

This principle is consistent with the heart of the

TGFU approach (Kirk, 2002): a technical or tactical

objective should be only introduced if the players

can make sense about it, or can feel the need for it

when they have performed a real game. From the

NDM approach, this principle is lead on the

sensemaking assumption. In team sport sensemaking

is a continuous process of understanding the play.

Sensemaking is a retrospective analysis of events

and a projection to the future. The Frame Theory of

sensemaking brought interesting implications for

learning and training. A frame, call it schema, map,

story or script, help us to recognize, connect or filter

data in the environment. Empirical findings in

soccer supported this assumption: Bossard and al.

(2011) described the schemata experts in soccer used

to reconstruct the dynamic of course of action.

Positioning the training device consists in

facilitating the framing process of coupling within

the game environment. Framing should be supported

when an objective is positioned in the on-going story

of a team (previous and future competition matches),

positioned in specific sub-phases of team games

(such as preparing the attempt to the goal, defending

a zone, or passing the ball from the defenders to the

forwards), and positioned in a space on the field.

4.2 Practicing SSPG

Practicing Small-Sided-Positioned Games is a

consequence of previous step. The focus is made on

designing representative small-sided games that

could implicitly shape configurations of play

required for competitive team games performance.

This principle seems to be consistent with theoretical

advances and empirical findings from the CLA.

Therefore, it is based on some argument from the

NDM line of research.

First, empirical studies showed that recognition

mechanisms experts used depend on their position

on the standard competitive pitch (e.g., Kermarrec &

Bossard, 2014). We suggest that the location of the

small-sided game within the standard pitch could

enhance the representativeness of a game. In other

words, sense making in the game and configuration

recognition may depend on the on-field location

within on the standard pitch. Thus position of the

game and positions of the targets must be thought in

accordance with the configuration of play the coach

wants to be trained.

Second, because intuitive decision-making is

based on a spatiotemporal recognition, our results

pointed out that timing is relevant when experts

identified a configuration of a play (id.); SSG could

simulate specific sub-phases of team games such as

preparing the attempt to the goal, defending a zone,

or passing the ball from the defenders to the

forwards. Especially each time a play is ended (e.g.

the ball get out of the playing area), a game’s starter

should throw again the ball in the same area in order

to lead to cumulative experiences.

Third recognition of a configuration in a game

depends on previous experiences and on expertise in

an assigned position on the pitch. Because previous

research on decision-making in team sports

demonstrated that spatiotemporal recognition is

based on the players’ point of view, the players’

positions in the game should be related to their own

position or task in their competitive team (De

keukelaere et al., 2013; Le Menn & Kermarrec,

2015). In SSG each time the game starts again, the

players should go back to their assigned positions in

the game.

All of these points lead us to the idea that SSGs

should be Small-Sided Positioned Games (SSPGs);

SSPG and classical SSG are illustrated in figures 1

and 2.

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329

Figure 1: example of a SSPG aiming at passing the ball

from the defenders to the forwards.

Figure 2: example of a classical SSG presenting the same

structure than previous SSPG.

4.3 Picturing the Expected

Configuration of Play

In order to highlight configuration of play, the coach

can use the “Stop, Watch and Go” pedagogical

artefact in SSPG (e.g. Kermarrec & Bossard, 2015):

he stops the game shortly, orders the players to stay

in place, stresses them to briefly watch their

relations or positions, notes if the configuration is

expected or not, and starts the play again. Because

“picturing the configuration of play” is based on

visual chunks more than on verbalizable

information, this step of the 4P strategy should be

classify more toward the pole of implicit learning

than explicit learning. Of course in the field both

types of learning are present (Raab, 2007).

This step is driven from NDM empirical

findings. Studies based on RPD model highlighted

the role of spatiotemporal configuration recognition

in intuitive decision-making. These configurations

are a blend of distances, visual cues, goals, and

available motoric skills, more than explicit

knowledge. The aim of this pedagogical step is also

to help players, players and coach, to share, and to

reinforce or to throw out the same pictures (Macquet

and Stanton, 2014) when the team failed or succeed.

4.4 Post-analysing the Game

Post-analysing the game is not only a debriefing,

aiming at evaluating and providing explicit

feedbacks. It is also a time for putting pictures into

words, and concepts, debating choices that players

have made, associating configuration of play and

knowledge or tactical principles, and sharing them

between players and coaches. This principle seems

to be consistent with theoretical advances and

empirical findings from the TGFU approach:

language productions, debate ideas about action, and

explicit strategies are supposed to produce an impact

on explicit learning (Grehaigne et al., 2001).

Therefore, this fourth step of our 4P strategy is also

based on some argument from the NDM line of

research. Promoting verbal exchanges between

players should improve their cognitive package for

future decision-making. In work field, debriefing is a

key point for improving individual decision-making

(Klein, 2008) and for team coordination (Salas et al.,

2007). In a sport setting, recent findings suggested

that expert defenders (Kermarrec and Bossard, 2014)

used knowledge to diagnose or simulate the

situation, when the ball is far from them. Post-

analysing the game is a key point for coaches in

order to organize schemata within scripts or global

frames, in order to classify specific configuration of

play into a whole defensive or offensive strategy, in

accordance with a game style or philosophy.

5 TECHNOLOGICAL

ARTEFACTS WITHIN THE 4P

STRATEGY: AN

EXPLORATORY STUDY

The 4P strategy is based on both theoretical and

empirical insights. A cooperative research program

gathering together professional coaches and

researchers from the Brittany Soccer League in

France have been conducted in order to

systematically assess this pedagogical strategy. It

was expected that the 4P strategy was well suited for

intuitive and coordinated decision-making training.

Positioning/Practicing/Picturing/Post-analysing

consist in four steps for a whole strategy and were

supposed to favour recognition and sharing of

configurations of play.

Moreover in the present research, technological

STARTER

A Smal l -Si ded- Posi t i oned G ame

A cl assical

Smal l- Sided

Games

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artefacts were introduced within the third step.

Picturing consists in stopping the game for a very

short time when a relevant configuration emerges

from the on-going situation. It was hypothesized that

technological device such as video-cued artefacts on

digital tablet could help shared recognition of a

configuration. The video of the game was recorded

through digital camera, and immediately sent to the

tablet thanks to Bluetooth system. Recent study

demonstrated that it could a precious artefact for

sharing process and content sharedness (Kermarrec,

2015).

The 4P strategy and video-cued artefacts were

experimented in four soccer schools (U13) from the

Brittany soccer League in France. Forty youth

players (mean +/- SD; age=12,53 +/- 1.62)

participated in this study, divided by 4 groups

depending to their own soccer school. For each

group the objective of training sequence was to be

able to better transport the ball from the defenders to

the attackers. Each group had 10 players who were

divided into two teams of 5 players each by the

coaches. Players and their parents were fully

informed of aims and procedures of the study and

signed a consent form. First, each group played a

classical SSG (see fig. 2) at the beginning of the

usual training session on a 30x50 m pitch with 10

minutes duration (pre-test). Then, the four groups

practiced two periods of 15 minutes (training

conditions), and a recovery period of 5 minutes

between them. Each group had a specific condition.

Three groups practiced a specific SSPG aiming at

enhancing the advance of the ball from the defenders

to the attackers within a team (see fig. 1 and 2). The

area for both SSG was a 50 x 30 meter rectangle

divided into 3 areas. The players are divided into

two teams, which play 5 vs 5. Each team is allowed

to score in any of their 2 goals. In the SSPG, the

players are positioned within the inner zones

depending on their tasks in the team (2 defenders, 2

midfielders, 1 forward). The game starts with the

team positioned in the defense zone, when the starter

passes the ball to one of the defender, whose goal is

to advance the ball in the field and score in one of

the two targets. If the opponents get the ball, they try

to score a goal in any of their 2 goals.

The four training conditions were: C1, practicing

the classical SSG; C2, practicing the SSPG, without

any specific verbal instruction or demonstration; C3,

practicing the SSPG and furnishing pedagogical aids

through the 4P strategy; C4, practicing the SSPG

and furnishing pedagogical aids though the 4P

strategy included video-cued artefacts.

All the games were videotaped from a fixed and

high position. Video-recorded images were

transferred to a digital support for analyses. We

tracked the ball position on the screen and measured

the Ball Advance (i.e., the advance of the ball from

the defenders to the attackers within each team’s

possession of the ball, in meters). Distances’

measure method was inspired by the method using a

single camera and combining manual video tracking

and bi-dimensional reconstruction for sports

performance analysis (Duarte et al., 2010). Virtual

distances data (i.e., pixels) were transformed into

world pitch distances. A calibration was built on the

field's reference marks acting as control points.

Researchers and coaches considered the Ball

Advance as a good indicator for team coordination,

in line with pedagogical content (i.e., being able to

transport the ball from the defenders to the

attackers). It was calculated for each group in the

classical SSG (pre-test) and in each training

condition. Effect sizes (partial eta squared) and

ANOVA with post-hoc test (LSD) were performed

using SSPS.

Table 1: Ball Advance within the field for each possession

of a ball in a team (in meters).

Ball Advance M SD F p

Partial

Pre-Test

G1 14,8 6,98

0,07 ns 0,04

G2 15,4 6,48

G3 14,5 6,80

G4 15,4 5,35

Training

Conditions

C1 16,1 6,85

11,6 .00 1,67

C2 12,6 7,85

C3 17,4 5,62

C4 20,8 6,02

Table 1 presents Ball Advance mean (+/- SD) results

per group (pre-test) and per training condition.

During the pre-test, Ball Advance did not present

statistical significant effect, so that the different

groups’ level of coordination could be considered as

equivalent. The Ball Advance indicator revealed a

high effect size value on the training conditions

factor, so that we ran follow-up analyses. The

ANOVA and post-hoc analyses revealed that Ball

Advance in SSPG was longer in C4 than in C3 (p<

.05), than in C2 (p< .01), and than in C1 (p< .01).

Surprisingly, Ball Advance in SSPG without 4P

strategy (C2) was shorter than in C1, in the classical

SSG (p<.05).

6 CONCLUSIONS

The aim of this communication was to present some

advances from NDM for tactical skills training in

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team sports. It was expected that the 4P strategy and

included video-cued artefacts could promote an

intuitive and coordinated decision-making by

highlighting configurations of play. First, our results

suggested that coaches should carefully designed

SSG, and ensure their representativeness. Because

some SSPG presented high level of constraints (C2),

youth players performed less than in a usual SSG

(C1), if coaches did not took in account the need for

making sense of the situation. Second, youth

players’ decisions and coordination were favoured in

SSPG when the 4P strategy promoted positioning

and picturing (C3 & C4). Furthermore, the results

highlighted the interest of visual pedagogical aids.

Video-cued artefacts embedded in the coaching

process, seems to be useful for picturing the relevant

configuration of play, and for sharing the same

picture between teammates (C4).

Finally, we emphasized that both of the TGfU

framework and the constraints-led approach should

be complemented by NDM advances on intuitive

and coordinated decision-making; they provide

rationale for the implementation of a 4P strategy,

which needs to be empirically examined in other

various settings.

Future research could also

introduce new video-cued artefacts within the 4P

strategy. At the first step, video from previous

matches, or behavioural data analysis could be used

for goal setting and positioning the training device.

At the fourth step, debriefing could start with video

footages: ideas debate is stimulated when ones can

see his own behaviour or his teammates’

performances, and sharing in promoted thanks to

viewpoint changes (Kermarrec and Bossard, 2014).

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to coaches A. Rimasson and N. Royer.

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