RTS: Football Conditioning Games

Soccer Football - Premier League - Nottingham Forest v Crystal Palace - Crystal Palace’s Eberechi Eze during the warm-up before the match Action Images via Reuters/Andrew Boyers

Soccer teams must regularly deal with 50 time-loss injuries per season, which averages out to two injuries per player in a squad of 25. This significantly impacts the team’s performance, as up to 14% of the squad is unavailable due to injury⁽¹⁾. These performance-related consequences also carry financial implications. For example, in the English Premier League, teams lose an average of £45 million due to time-loss injuries suffered over the course of a season⁽²⁾. Considering this, clinicians and researchers continue to uncover strategies to mitigate injury risks, improve injury prevention, and refine return to sport protocols.

The return to play phase marks the final step in a player’s rehabilitation, with training load monitoring becoming incredibly important to minimize the re-injury risk while at the same time bringing the player to their pre-injury physical level⁽³⁾. Part of the return to play process includes the gradual re-introduction to contact-based drills, which in the case of football are small-, medium-, and large-sided games (see table 1). Practitioners refer to these terms collectively as football conditioning games. 

Table 1: Football conditioning games and player numbers

Football Conditioning Games

Modern football demands continue to shift, and practitioners use small-, medium-, and large-sided games to develop players’ technical and tactical acumen and physical capacity. Football conditioning games are valid and representative of the real-world physical, technical, and tactical requirements of football match play and are the foundation of football training methodologies globally^(4–7).

Table 2: Advantages & disadvantages between specific & generic conditioning⁽⁸⁾.

While the use of these games aligns itself with the principle of specificity, there are instances where the intensity of the games cannot be as precisely controlled as generic physical conditioning (see table 2). Because of this, all practitioners need to note that several variables can be manipulated to regulate the physical and physiological demands associated with these games, which in turn will allow for a more precise training load planning and, ultimately, a reduction in re-injury risk that may be associated with exposing a returning player to the incorrect game format and variables that they are not prepared for. Practitioners must consider the player numbers, duration of games, pitch size, and rules utilized as they influence the intensity of football conditioning games^(7,9,10).

Player numbers
A different training response is elicited based on the game size^(8,11). The lower the player numbers, the higher the intensity, whereas most of the physical indicators increase as the number of players increases, i.e., peak speed and acceleration^(5,8,10).

Game duration
Repetition duration, repetition count, and the work-to-rest (W:R) ratio contribute to the induced stress during football conditioning games^(12–14).Manipulating these three components, which suit specific training categories, elicits different training intensities and training responses (see table 3). 

Table 3: Training load categories^(14,15).

Pitch size 
When the player number is kept constant, altering the pitch size can elicit different physiological responses (see figure 1)⁽¹⁶⁾. 

Rules utilized
By manipulating the rules, practitioners will impact the physical stress imposed on the athletes. For example, restrictions on the number of ball contacts allowed per player at a time – one-touch, two-touch, and free-play. 

Game format
Adjusting the game format creates different technical, tactical, and cognitive stressors for athletes. For example, using normal goals with goalkeepers, possession-based games, or small goals without goalkeepers. All these formats play a role in the return to sport pathway, and clinicians must consider the adjustments necessary to meet the player’s recovery stage and induce cognitive and physical stressors necessary to allow adaptation. Furthermore, coaches can use verbal encouragement/information, which may include tactical and technical ques and general encouragement to maintain a high work intensity^(14,15). Considering that these variables have been identified as impacting the intensity of football conditioning games, it’s important to unpack them into two specific categories: internal and external loading. 

“A different training response is elicited based on the game size.”

Internal and External Load

When planning their return to sports protocols, clinicians can use heart rate response (% of maximal heart rate) to design and target specific physiological capacities. For example, 3v3-4v4 FCGs develop VO2 max, while 5v5, 6v6, 8v8, and 9v9 develop lactate thresholds. Furthermore, 3v3 improves repeated sprint ability, and finally, 1v1 and 2v2 develop speed endurance production and speed endurance maintenance, respectively^{(5,8,10,15–29)}. They must apply specific pitch sizes, rules, and work-to-rest ratios for these conditioning games to achieve the required intensities associated with lactate threshold, VO2 max, and anaerobic training (see table 4). 

Table 4: Football conditioning games and variables for specific training goals. 

When considering the external load (such as total distance run, high-speed distances, absolute maximum velocity, etc.), all these metrics increase with an increase in pitch size and player number utilized (10v10, > 7v7, > 5v5). Furthermore, total distance, very high and maximal speed distances increase when the game format includes goalkeepers (versus possession), while accelerations and decelerations increase in smaller-sided formats (5v5 > 7v7 > 10v10)⁽³⁰⁾.