Tactical-technical performance in footvolley: validation of an observational instrument

Abstract

Aim: This study aimed to validate an observational instrument of footvolley's tactics (FtVi) and use it in an empirical investigation of tactical-technical tendencies in high-level footvolley matches. Methods: The validation followed five steps: i) design; ii) pilot analysis; iii) content validation; iv) reproducibility; v) empirical study. We analyzed women's and men's matches from the Brazilian Footvolley's Circuit - 2019. Content validity and reproducibility were evaluated with Aiken's V and Cohen's Kappa coefficients, respectively. The Chi-square test of independence was applied to infer about sexes' tactical tendencies. Results: The FtVi encompassed the following categories: i) match context; ii) game situation; iii) rally's outcome; iv) game actions. Aiken's V coefficients were greater than 0.90. Intraand inter-observer reproducibility presented near perfect agreement (0.92; 0.89). Assessment of the game dynamics did not point to a significantly greater proportion of complex II (w: 60.6%; m: 57.5%) than complex I (w: 39.4%, m: 42.5%), p > 0.05. The median rallies' length was close to three court exchanges for both sexes. The attack efficiency did not present significantly greater frequency of continuation attacks (w: 70.4.5%, m: 66.8%) in relation to points (w: 19.4. %, m: 22.9%), p > 0.05. For all attacks and scoring attacks, backcourt and net zone were respectively more frequent. Most frequent techniques were different between sexes and all related to upper body (women - head: 29.7%, shoulder: 23.0%; men - chest: 30.3%, head: 24.8%). Conclusion: FtVi successfully supported gathering evidence about footvolley's tactics, which may help coaches' practice. The absence of hands-arm use in the footvolley's techniques may contribute both to longer rallies since steep attacks are limited and, counter-intuitively, to a greater emphasis on upperbody than foot techniques.