Agility assessment in female futsal and soccer players

Cinzia Benvenuti¹, Carlo Minganti^{1, 2}, Giancarlo Condello¹, Laura Capranica¹, Antonio Tessitore¹

¹Department of Human Movement and Sport Science, University of Rome “Foro Italico,” Italy, ²Department of Experimental and Clinical Medicine, “Magna Graecia” University of Catanzaro, Italy

Key words: agility; futsal; soccer; field test; female players.

Summary. Agility is the player’s capability to perform rapid whole-body movement with change of velocity or direction in response to a stimulus. The aims of this study were as follows: 1) to assess the reliability of a reactive visual stimuli agility field test (RVS-T); and 2) to evaluate differences in RVS-T and planned (PVS-T) agility performances between female soccer and futsal players.

Material and methods. Sixty-six female players belonging to Italian teams of regional level were recruited to the study. The experimental apparatus consisted of four lighted spherical visual stimuli connected to a computer able to randomly generate three different sequences. Differences between RVS-T and PVS-T performances were calculated to evaluate the decision-making time (DMT) of players.

Results. The intraclass reliability coefficient for RVS-T was 0.80. Significant (P<0.05) differences emerged only for RVS-T (futsal, 17.3±0.5 s; soccer, 18.8±1.1 s) and DMT (futsal, 2.6±0.6 s; soccer, 4.1±1.2 s), whereas similar performances between groups resulted for PVS-T (futsal, 14.7±0.6 s; soccer, 14.6±0.6 s).

Conclusions. The RVS-T proved to be a reliable tool to evaluate agility in field conditions. Futsal players showed better RVS-T and DMT performances with respect to soccer counterparts, probably due to the higher velocity of actions and faster decision-making of their sport. The lack of difference in PVS-T performances confirms the importance to evaluate agility capabilities of players in both planned and reactive conditions.

Correspondence to C. Benvenuti, Department of Human Movement and Sport Sciences, University of Rome Foro Italico, P.za Lauro de Bosis 15, 00135 Rome, Italy. E-mail: cinzia.benvenuti@uniroma4.it

Received 17 May 2010, accepted 7 June 2010