Abstract
Football (soccer) is traditionally played on natural grass but artificial surfaces are becoming an increasing popular alternative. Understanding how different surfaces affect a player's skill performance has not been examined. This study sought to compare soccer skill performance, using a validated test, on natural grass, third generation (3G) artificial turf, and indoor sprung wooden floor. Following familiarisation, 14 male players (12.7 ± 0.5 years-old, with 6.21 years playing experience) performed the Loughborough Soccer Passing Test (LSPT) on three different surfaces in the following order: indoor, grass and artificial turf. Players were given two practise attempts before the best of two trials were recorded. Movement time was faster on artificial turf (45.1 ± 1.3 s) than natural grass (46.2 ± 1.8 s; p = 0.045), but there was no difference in overall LSPT performance between grass (54.1 ± 4.2 s) and artificial turf (54.0 ± 4.7 s; p = 0.92). Overall LSPT performance was better on indoor surface (50.9 ± 4.6 s) than grass (p = 0.02) and artificial turf (p = 0.02) due to reduced penalty time on the indoor surface (5.5 ± 3.3 s) than grass (7.9 ± 2.9 s; p = 0.001) and artificial turf (8.9 ± 3.9 s; p = 0.003). There is no difference in soccer skill performance between grass and 3G artificial turf. Skill performance on an indoor surface was ∼6% better than both grass and 3G artificial turf due to better ball control and/or accuracy of passing. Our findings will enable comparison of studies using the LSPT on indoor and outdoor (grass or artificial) surfaces.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 1378-1384 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | International Journal of Sports Science and Coaching |
Volume | 17 |
Issue number | 6 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Dec 2022 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Artificial turf
- association football
- ball passing test
- dribbling
- natural grass
- sprung wooden floor