Development of a Notational Analysis System for Selected Soccer Skills of a Women's College Team

The purposes of this study were to develop a notational system to evaluate passing, dribbling, first touch, and individual defensive skills as they relate to success during women's soccer games and to develop a statistical model to weigh the importance of each skill on creating scoring opportunities. Sequences of skills in ten games of a National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I intercollegiate women's soccer team were coded using well defined performance scores and outcomes. The notational analysis system was highly reliable as demonstrated by Spearman's rank correlations (>.98) between the first and second notation of three games for all four skills. The importance scores calculated from a Bayesian model demonstrated that dribbling (.0127) was the most important skill on creating scoring opportunities, followed by first touch (.0079), passing (.0075), and individual defense (.0050). The notational system developed from this study provides coaches with reliable and objective information to improve practice planning and optimize performance.