Analysis of technical and physical variables according to the result of the match in 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia

• DOI: 10.15517/pensarmov.v23i1.57150
• Publication Date: 2025-01-31T20:04:41Z
• Authors: Moisés Arturo Cab...; Luis Javier Tafur; Sergio Andrés García; Alexander Quiñonez; Carmen Ximena Tejada; Yecid Mina-Paz

Soccer is the most popular sport worldwide, with an increasing number of professional players every year, and associated with it, it is complex and unpredictable with multiple physical, technical, tactical and psychological problems critical to performance. In the 90s, performance analysis based on tools included global positioning systems and optical tracking systems for each player. For this reason, this study aimed to analyze physical and technical variables related to the result of a match and the fact that a team qualifies for the different phases of the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia. The analysis covered all matches played during the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia, up to 64 matches of the 32 participating national teams. The goal could be insufficient to define a team's success, as this variable depends on different and multiple variables. Teams that qualified for the knockout phase showed significantly better performance in some technical variables. On the other hand, regarding the physical variables, the most successful teams traveled shorter total distances, presenting more significant distances in intensity zones 1 and 5 and possession of the ball. These aspects deserve to be analyzed to define their relationship with success in the game.