Match analysis in futsal: a systematic review

The purpose of this study was 1) to look at and organise the literature on the analysis of futsal matches and 2) to identify research themes. We analysed the main national and international bibliographic databases using key words relating to futsal in different languages, which were linked to terms pertaining to match analysis. Out of a total of 722 documents, the study focused on 79 papers specifically dealing with our intended objectives. The literature was classified into three groups: studies related to notational analysis (65), studies related to the analysis of movement and interpersonal coordination (13), and review studies (1). As primary conclusions, we found that there is a lack of consensus on the vocabulary used and on common meanings for defining the different variables of the game in all countries. The language most widely used is Portuguese, which hampers the international dissemination of information. Additionally, publication in international scientific journals is scarce (13%), in spite of the volume of high-quality studies that are published in journals of an informative nature that are closer to coaches. We detected that the areas or aspects in which there are greater gaps in research are those related to players’ development, sport management and the analysis of the game as a whole, rather than individual variables of the game.