GPS technology and game performance in football training: a systematic review

Abstract

This study was conducted to investigate small-sided games (SSG) played in football training using Global Positioning System (GPS) technology. The research involved scanning relevant scientific publications in English, containing titles and abstracts related to football and GPS technology, between January 1, 2017, and September 20, 2022, using Web of Science, Pubmed, and Scopus databases. The database review resulted in finding 310 articles. After excluding 103 duplicate articles, 114 more articles were excluded during the examination of abstracts. Upon the examination of all remaining 93 articles, 59 related to match performance, 6 review articles, and 4 articles written in a language other than English were excluded. Following this comprehensive review, 23 studies were included in the quantitative synthesis. The study revealed a diversity of physical, psychophysiological, technical-tactical, surface-related, gender-related, and player position-related aspects in small-sided game research in football. Based on this systematic review, it is suggested that physical, psychological, and technical-tactical factors can be integrated with positional data using parameters such as player movement speed, spatial movement, playing areas, and intra-team and inter-team synchronization pairs.