Technical and tactical performance analysis of the matches in Uefa 2016 European football championship

The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of the technical and tactical performance indicators that created for the analysis of matches in the group and knockout stages at UEFA 2016 European Football Championship on the success status of the teams. The study consists of 51 matches in the championship by covering three time periods, first half, second half and total. The matches in the sample are divided into two groups as successful (n=56) and unsuccessful (n=46) match results of the teams. OPTA Sportsdata, which provides live match statistics for websites, has been used to collect data of technical parameters. The data collected for the technical parameters were supported by the data on the UEFA Euro 2016 website. The data of the tactical parameters were collected after the match using the computerized notation analysis method by recording the matches broadcasted by the national broadcasting organization on the computer during the broadcast of the matches with BandiCam 4.0.2.1352 version video recording program and transferring video images to LongoMatch 0.20.8 version open source video analysis program. While considering performance indicators such as the number of shot on-off target, the number of success-failed passes, the number of short-long passes, the number of square-forward-backward passes and the number of change the game direction by passing the opponent's half-area in order to analyze the technical efficiencies of teams in the matches; performance indicators such as running backward after losing the ball in the third zone, recovering the ball with pressing within 15 sec. after the lost ball, winning the ball inside own half-field and transition to up-field, winning the ball inside up-field and finishing within 15 sec., transition from the second zone to the third zone in the finalized-unfinalized attacks, finalized-unfinalized counter-attack within 15 sec., over 20 sec. set game and attacking styles before score a goal were considered for the tactical actions. In order to test the reliability of the performance indicators and collected data used in the analysis of tactical actions, four randomly selected matches were re-analyzed by the same person, and the intra-observer reliability test was applied by IBM SPSS 21.0 version package program with the results of the initial analysis. After completion of the video analysis and reliability test of the matches, descriptive statistics and nonparametric Chi-square (X2) independence test were used by using SPSS to compare teams' result in successes and unsuccess matches in the group and knockout stages and to reveal the relationship between performance indicators and success status. As a result of the reliability test, Cohen's Kappa coefficient was found between 0.61 and 1.00. According to the findings obtained from the research, significant correlations were observed at p≤0.05 level between technical efficiencies related to the number of shot on-off target, the number of success-failed passes, the number of short-long passes, the number of backward passes, the number of change the game direction by passing the opponent's half-area and the success status determined according to the match results. Besides significant correlations were found between the tactical actions related to running backward after losing the ball in the third zone, recovering the ball with pressing within 15 sec. after the lost ball, winning the ball inside own half-field and transition to up-field, winning the ball inside up-field and finishing within 15 sec., transition from the second zone to the third zone in the finalized attacks, finalized-unfinalized counter-attack within 15 sec., over 20 sec. set game, attacking styles before score a goal and the success status of the teams (p≤0.05). In the light of the results of our research, it is necessary to analyze the game transitions and play styles technically and tactically for the teams to be successful and to understand the dynamic structure of football in a better way; turning the data obtained from these analyzes into strong information is thought to be useful in the creation and planning of soccer-specific training models. Keywords: Technical Analysis, Tactical Analysis, Match Analysis, Game Transitions, Game Styles