V.E. Afonshin¹
Dr.Hab., Professor G.L. Drandrov²
Dr.Hab., Associate Professor I.E. Konovalov^3
1LEMA LLC, Yoshkar-Ola,
²Yakovlev Chuvash State Pedagogical University, Cheboksary
³Volga Region State Academy of Physical Culture, Sports and Tourism, Kazan

Keywords: football, interactive computerized training system, training, ball handling, dribbling.

Introduction

The rapid development of children and youth football for the period till 2030 has been stated in the national strategy for football development in Russia. One of the promising areas for improving youth athletes’ football training is the creation and wide application of high-tech software and hardware simulator systems on the basis of personal computers equipped with special diagnostic and control equipment that will significantly enhance the information support capacities of training connected with the development of methods for solving various motor problems [1-7]. In the meantime, many technological advances, digital and information technologies have not yet found application in the present-day practice of training and completion activities in team sports, including football. In particular, the capacities of the controlled interactive multimedia environment and its application in combination with biological feedback at the stage of football primary technical skills training. Resolving this contradiction gave rise to the main goal of the research being the creation of the interactive training system (ITS) and developing the method of its application for youth athletes training the dribbling and ball control skill.

Methods and research arrangement

To achieve the goal we applied: analysis and generalization of scientific and methodological literature, theoretical simulation, video recording with the computer analysis, academic testing, teaching experiment and mathematical statistics methods.

The research involved two groups of 10-11 year old football players from the groups of primary training of Specialized Children and Youth Sports School of the Olympic Reserve, Yoshkar-Ola. The reference group (18 children) were trained the dribbling and ball control skill taking into account the content and requirements of the standard program of sports training for Football Youth Sports School and Specialized Children and Youth Sports School of the Olympic Reserve. The experimental group (16 children) were trained the skill of ball control and dribbling on the basis of the experimental method developed by us using the ITS. The teaching experiment was taking place from September 2014 to June 2015. The tastes’ motor abilities and the skill of ball control and dribbling were measured before and after the experiment.  

Research outcomes

Figure 1 shows the structural and functional model of the ITS, explaining the contents and interconnection of its main components:

1. The ITS contents creation system serves to create and control audio and video content of the training process. 
2. The ITS monitoring and feedback system serves to control the athlete’s location, actions, accuracy of drill or test performance and to generate signals to change the content of the ITS.
3. The ITS biofeedback system records and processes the signals from sensors attached to a football player, informs the participants about the monitored or controlled parameters of the player (heart rate, blood pressure, arterial pressure, etc.) under the current load and transmits the signals in real time to control the content of the ITS.

The projectors of the ITS help to create a luminous, comprehensible optical coding of the playing area on the football pitch. The coding of the playing field shows the athlete the required movements or actions in accordance with the coaching or test program. The optical coding is actualized in the form of contrasting light spots of the training field with different degree of illumination (brightness), spots of different color, shapes or pulsations of the projected images.

The main objectives of visualization and optical coding application in the ITS are:

• Generating invariable and variable tracks of a football player’s movements and figure patterns of the drills;
• Giving directions for the athletes to follow for suggested movements with points or arrows;
•  Giving directions for the footballer's body positioning, directions to kick or handle the ball or the spot for the athlete or ball to stay;    
• Generating stationary and mobile light bands;
• Displaying the parameters of the training session, the test and the athlete’s  condition using biofeedback;

The interactive and non-interactive content control methods in the ITS can be used with: manual, automatic-software and combined control modes. The hardware and software allows us to generate three types of the visual content: predictably changing, unpredictably changing and interactive video content. The interactive video content helps to develop a series of novel effective drills to be similar to the real game environment.

Fig.1. Structural and functional model of the ITS

ABCD - the playing ground, ABCDE - the amount of video content, ABCDG - the size of the test zone (video monitoring), 1 – the football player, 2 – the ball, 3 – the allowed zone, 4 - the projector, 5 – the unallowed zone, 6 – the sign of the player's movement direction, 7 - the loss zone, 8 - the player's portable audio system, 9 - the CPU, 10 - the coach, 11 - the external database unit, 12 - the input device, 13- the monitor, 14 - the coach’s microphone, 15 - the coach’s audio system of, 16 – the ball and athlete’s movements control unit, 17 - the football player’s microphone, 18 - the biofeedback signals recording unit

To enhance the efficiency of the training sessions aided by the ITS, multimedia  instruction as active feedback is used in addition, which along with changing the zone configuration, points and tracks on the playing field, provides the trainee with additional video and audio information. The ITS created by us is a construction kit of static and dynamic contrasting light items of various contents and configurations. The ITS offers the possibility to create original training and test drills with a multivariate simulation of their space and time characteristics to train effectively movements with and without the ball, in or out of the matchup situation with a virtual opponent. These drills carry substantial didactic potential for solving such problems as: 1) improving the skills of movement without a ball changing the speed and the direction; 2) teaching how to handle the ball while maintaining the space and time structure of running when moving with a ball; 3) training dribbling skills with leave and stop fakes. Below are the exemplary drills for solving these problems.

1. A game of tags obstacles

A game where the athletes are divided into pairs - one runs away, the other is to catch up and touch him with a hand. The players move around the pitch with and without the ball trying to avoid the permanent and mobile unallowed light zones. The number, size, speed and algorithm for moving bands are set by the coach from the ITS library.

2. Pursuit avoidance

The main point of the drill is the player’s maneuvering and leaving with or without the ball within a restricted area from the following him virtual opponent being a light zone. The size of the playing area, speed and direction of the movements of the pursuing zone are set by the coach or the hardware and software system taking into account the trainee’s motor capabilities.

3. The pursuit of the figure

A figure (a circle, a star, etc.) is generated on the pitch with the help of a light-dynamic beam moving along the unpredictable zig-zag track. The speed of the figure movement is approximately equal to the youth players’ speed of running. The trace of the figure is displayed by the light-dynamic illumination in the form of a light band of 0.5 to 1 m wide which gradually fades in 5 meters. The player is to move with or without a ball, catching up with the figure staying within the band.

4. A light track

It is a series of drills to be performed in various movement combinations handling the ball or without one along the given track. The light tracks are set by the coach using the ITS.  The routes are diverse, they are either stationary or transformable seen as lines or bands of the given width. The athlete’s movement speed and change in the actions can be set by an additional light sign.

5. Checkpoints

The light points are sequentially created on the pitch within the player's sight at different time intervals which must be noted and covered. At the same time, the player should be moving with or without the ball being focused on the point which was lit last.

6. Inertia

The unallowed light band of the preset size is created on the pitch. The band is controlled manually by the coach or by the hardware and software system. The task of the player is to go round the band with or without the ball doing feigned movements to the right and to the left. At the same time, the band responds with some delay, the value of which can be lowered by the coach with the player skill growth.

The trained dribbling and ball control and aided by the ITS is subject to certain organizational and methodological conditions: 1) performing drills aided by the ITC using the methodological techniques of repeated, adjacent, convergent, contrasting and variable tasks. With the ITS application, the possibilities of using those methodological techniques of ball handling training drills are expanded; 2) real time monitoring of training drill performance. The ITS monitoring and feedback system facilitates in informing players in real time of their actions correctness; 3) adjustment of the training drills complexity and difficulty taking into account the trainees’ individual learning abilities. This is done by controlling the parameters of the light objects projected onto the playground: the shape, number, area, speed of movement, predictability and unexpectedness of the change in speed and direction of movement, the degree of their inertia; 4) doing drills within the scope of the competitive methods, which is possible due to the function of the ITS to evaluate numerically the training drills execution.

The results of the teaching experiment have shown that the application of  developed by us innovative method to train dribbling and ball control provides a significant improvement in the youth football players’ running speed with or without the ball in a straight line changing the movement direction, in efficiency of the dribbling technique.

Conclusions:

1. The ITS developed generates the video and audio content of the training area. The ITS is a construction kit of static and dynamic contrasting light objects of various content and configuration (zones, points, tracks, bands, circles, squares, etc.) on the pitch. The ITS provides an opportunity to create original training and test drills with a multivariate simulation of space and time characteristics to train effectively youth athletes to move with or without the ball, in or out of the matchup situation with a virtual opponent whose resistance level is set by the coach manually or by the ITS software taking into account the athlete's proficiency.

2. The ITS functionality allowed us to develop the innovative drills and an effective methodology for their application for training youth football players in the dribbling and ball control.

References

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Corresponding author: fizkult@teoriya.ru

Abstract

The study analyzes benefits of a new training system (TS) for junior (10-11 year-old) footballers to master ball handling and dribbling skills – designed using the modern computerized interactive video imaging system. The TS generates a variety of static and dynamic images different in content and shapes including different zones, points, routes, corridors, circles, squares etc. on the game field. The TS also makes it possible to generate special training and progress test exercises variable in the spatial and temporal terms – to successfully train the junior footballers in a wide variety of simulated game situations – with/ without the ball and with/ without opposition that is rated and controlled by the coach by manual or software tools customizable to the individual skills and fitness. The TS gave the means to design a set of special training practices and identify the process management and practical conditions for the junior footballers to successfully master the ball handling and dribbling skills. The new training system was tested beneficial as verified by the junior footballers’ progress in the ball handling and dribbling skills.