Relationships between Soccer Teams` Fitness Level and League Standing at Different Stages of the Season

Soccer is a complex sport that requires many qualities from the players. The purpose of the study was to find relationships between the players’ physical fitness and the team standing at four stages of the season in a professional soccer league. One hundred and eighty-two trained male players from 12 teams of the first Israeli soccer division during the 2016-17 season participated in the study. All teams took part in four identical fitness testing sessions at four different stages of the season, including: 10 and 20m sprint run, vertical jump, agility, and aerobic power assessment.

Jump height was found to be significantly related to team standing in the league, either when scores were calculated as the percent of team players in the upper quarter of scores (significant at all four stages – r= -0.639 – -0.758), or when scores were calculated as team averages (significant only at the second stage – r= -0.603). No other fitness variable was found to be significantly related to the teams’ standing at any of the season’s stages.

The results indicate that anaerobic-type training, which improves players’ legs power, should be given priority throughout the season. The findings may also indicate that the players’ physical fitness alone is probably not a sufficient factor to reliably predict a soccer team’s success.

Keywords: power; strength; speed; anaerobic training; aerobic power