Purpose: This study aimed to investigate if player tactical skill level and age category influence team performance and player exploratory behavior in tasks with different difficulty levels. Method: In total, 48 youth male soccer players participated in the study (U15, n = 24, mean age = 13.06 ± 1.53 years; U17, n = 24, mean age = 16.89 ± 0.11 years). Player tactical skills were evaluated through the System of Tactical Assessment in Soccer (FUT-SAT), allowing them to be organized into three groups according to tactical efficiency: Higher tactical skill level (Group 01), Intermediate tactical skill level (Group 02), and Lower tactical skill level (Group 03). Next, Group 01 and Group 03 of both categories performed six Small-Sided and Conditioned Games (SSCG) each, namely three High difficulty SSCGs and three Low difficulty SSCGs. Team performance and players’ exploratory behavior were analyzed through the Offensive Sequences Characterization System and Lag Sequential Analysis, respectively. Results: We found that team performance and players’ exploratory behavior were influenced both by the age and tactical skill level of the players, as well as by task difficulty level. Conclusion: Therefore, in an attempt to improve player performance, practitioners must carefully manipulate key task constraints to adapt training task difficulty levels to player age and tactical skill level.

Background: Street football can be understood as the most natural way to learn football and it can be a great starting point to develop perceptual, decisional, tactical and motor skills. Importantly, players involved in Street football may develop a strong emotional bond to the game through their experiences playing in an informal setting and eventually this could support their participation in a more structured playing environment. However, nowadays, talented children have reduced opportunities to play the game in this informal environment and instead, are mostly experiencing the game through their participation in organised settings such as in youth football clubs and academies. Importantly, such structured and formal environments afford the children a more rigid and less representative learning environment, which could potentially inhibit the development of creativity and adaptability among these young players. Purpose: The current paper aims to discuss the importance of Street football to players’ development and the role of a Nonlinear Pedagogy (NLP) framework to support the design of a player-centred and game-based approach that can contribute to enhance learning of creative and adaptive behaviours in football. Discussion: Pedagogical principles of NLP (representative learning design, information-movement couplings, manipulation of constraints, exploratory learning and reducing conscious control of movement) underpinned by concepts from Ecological Dynamics and working through pedagogical channels (instruction, feedback and practice) can facilitate the design of representative training tasks to enhance learning. NLP emphasises a learner-centred approach and highlights the critical role that the practitioner plays as a facilitator in providing learners with meaningful practice that leads to effective transfer of game-play behaviours. Street football affords features that capture some of the above key pedagogical principles and presents a suitable platform to support the acquisition of game-play behaviour that is meaningful for the individual learner. Conclusions: Through a recognition of the current need to design a football learning environments that capture key elements of Street football, we highlight the relevance of NLP as a pedagogical framework to underpin a learner-centred and game-based approach, supporting practitioners with a set of pedagogical principles. Thus, we propose that through this representative learning environment we can enhance learning in football and contribute to the development of intelligent and creative players.

Resumo: O alargamento das possibilidades de compreensão do fenômeno esporte e avanços em Pedagogia do Esporte tiveram um importante papel da ciência, observando os diferentes personagens, cenários, significados e finalidades do esporte. Todavia, no bojo das transformações que alcançaram a sociedade contemporânea, a própria ciência viu-se em meio a crises e rupturas paradigmáticas. E é esta a alocação deste estudo, que discute as relações entre os paradigmas tradicionais da ciência e a consolidação de metodologias e procedimentos pedagógicos pioneiros no trato com os Jogos Esportivos Coletivos (JEC), muitos dos quais ainda perduram em diferentes contextos de ensino, aprendizagem e vivência do esporte. Assim, estando no presente (crises, rupturas paradigmática) olhando para o passado (ciência normal, conhecimento acumulado), será possível vislumbrar os pressupostos que apontem para uma ciência contemporânea, especificamente sob a ótica da Pedagogia do Esporte. Palavras chave: Ciência; Pedagogia do Esporte; Jogos Esportivos Coletivos; Paradigma. Abstract: The enlargement of the possibilities to understand the Sport and the advances in Sport Pedagogy phenomenon had an important support of science, observing the different characters, backgrounds, meanings and purposes of the sport. However, in the wake of the transformations that have reached the contemporary society, science found itself in the midst of crises and paradigmatic ruptures. And this is the allocation of this essay, which discusses the relationship between the traditional paradigms of science and consolidation of methodologies and pioneer pedagogical procedures in dealing with Collective Sports Games (JEC), many of which still exist in different contexts of teaching, learning and experience of sport. Thus, being in the present (crisis breaks paradigmatic) looking back (normal science, accumulated knowledge), you can glimpse the assumptions that point to a contemporary science, specifically from the perspective of Sport Pedagogy. Keywords: Science, Sport Pedagogy; Team Games; Paradigm.

O objetivo deste estudo foi analisar a participação das mulheres nos cargos de comissão técnica e de arbitragem no Campeonato Brasileiro de Futebol Feminino desde a primeira edição da competição, em 2013, até o ano de 2019. Analisamos a quantidade de mulheres atuantes como treinadoras, auxiliares técnicas, preparadoras físicas, massagistas, treinadoras de goleiras, fisioterapeutas e médicas. Também coletamos informações sobre o quarteto de arbitragem. Verificamos um predomínio (~86%) de homens em cargos de comissão técnica com um lento aumento da participação de mulheres. As mulheres parecem ter maior inserção nos cargos de comissão de arbitragem. Encontramos 39% de mulheres atuando como árbitras principais e 59% como árbitras assistentes. Verificamos que a participação de mulheres nos cargos de comissão técnica e de arbitragem no Campeonato Brasileiro de Futebol Feminino aumentou vagarosamente nos últimos anos, mas que a situação permanece de desigualdade.

This study aimed to investigate how different strategies of task constraint manipulation impact physical and tactical demands in small-sided and conditioned games (SSCG). Ten recreational U-17 soccer players participated in this study (16.89 ± 0.11 years). We used different strategies of task manipulation to design two 4 vs. 4 SSCG: Structural SSCG and Functional SSCG. In Structural SSCG, pitch format and goal sizes were manipulated, while in Functional SSCG, players were allowed to kick the ball twice and at least 5 passes to shoot at the opponent’s goal. Players participated in four Structural and Functional SSCG, of five minutes duration with a two-minute interval in between. Players’ physical performance and tactical behavior were assessed using the WIMU PRO^TM inertial device. Structural SSCG stimulated players to cover more distance in sprinting (p = 0.003) and high-speed running (p < 0.001). Regarding tactical behavior, Structural SSCG stimulated players to explore game space better (p < 0.001). Moreover, Functional SSCG stimulated players to be closer to the ball, decreasing the effective playing space (p = 0.008). We conclude that these strategies of task constraint manipulation impact physical and tactical demands of the game.

Keywords coach learning; lifelong learning; team sport; sports coach