Comparison of high-intensity patterns between possession games and small-sided games in professional soccer

Background: Many specific games are practiced with the aim of maintaining the possession of the ball by the team. Among them, possession games (POG) are similar to small-sided games (SSG), and as such, have a few different characteristics. Objective: The aim of this study was to compare high-intensity patterns of professional soccer players in relation to the positional role between POG and SSG in professional soccer. Methods: A descriptive analysis was conducted over one season, during typical training sessions with 5 vs. 5 designs and 10 official matches. Twenty-six male professional players (age 24.7 +/- 5 years, body mass 73.6 +/- 7 kg, body height 178.4 +/- 6.2 cm) were classified into five positional roles: central defender, wide defender, midfielder, wing and forward. Players' locomotor activity was recorded using GPS (Openfield-CatapultTM). Data on total distance, player-load, work rates (distance covered at speed > 14.9 km/h per min and distance covered at speed > 19.9 km/h per min), the number of runs in work rates, very high-intensity accelerations-decelerations (> 3.5 / < -3.5 m/s(2)) and maximal speed were measured. Results: The analysis of the data showed higher performance for POG in seven of the nine study variables (p <.01), except in accelerations where the SSG were higher than POG (p <.01), while no significant difference was obtained in decelerations. When comparing performance among playing positions, significantly higher values were observed in POG (p <.05) in the same variables (no differences for the wingers in total distance and player-load; wide defenders and forwards in distance covered at speed > 19.9 km/h per min). Regarding accelerations, SSG outperformed POG in almost all game positions (p <.05, except for wide defenders). No significant differences were found in decelerations for all positions. Conclusions: The findings suggest that POG could be used to stimulate the physical demands to which players are exposed to competitions. Moreover, SSG could be used as an exercise with greater intentionality when it comes to stimulating a significant number of accelerations per unit time.