INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES The structural and functional changes observed in the left ventricle in professional soccer players could cause alterations in ventricular rotation (Rv) and ventricular torsion (Tv). Our aim was to characterize the changes in Tv that occur in professional soccer players. METHODS In total, 17 professional soccer players and 10 healthy volunteers who had not undergon...

OBJECTIVE To examine the number and rate of neck injuries in the community as a whole for ice hockey, soccer, and American football by analysing data from patients presenting to emergency departments in the United States from 1990 to 1999. METHODS Data compiled for the US Consumer Product Safety Commission were used to generate estimates for the total number of neck injuries and the more spec...

The aim was to determine the volume and degree of asymmetry of quadratus lumborum (QL), obliques, and transversus abdominis; the last two considered conjointly (OT), in tennis and soccer players. The volume of QL and OT was determined using magnetic resonance imaging in professional tennis and soccer players, and in non-active controls (n = 8, 14, and 6, respectively). In tennis players the hyp...

The aim of this study was to examine the effects of a carbohydrate-electrolyte drink on specific soccer tests and performance. Twenty-two professional male soccer players volunteered to participate in the study. The players were allocated to two assigned trials ingesting carbohydrate-electrolyte drink (7% carbohydrates, sodium 24 mmol.l-1, chloride 12 mmol.l-1, potassium 3 mmol.l-1) or placebo ...

The aims of the present study were to compare the effects of 1) training at 90 and 100% sprint velocity and 2) supervised versus unsupervised sprint training on soccer-specific physical performance in junior soccer players. Young, male soccer players (17 ± 1 yr, 71 ± 10 kg, 180 ± 6 cm) were randomly assigned to four different treatment conditions over a 7-week intervention period. A control gro...

Soccer players frequently experience acute and chronic groin pain. Sportsman's hernia is a common injury in professional soccer players, that causes inguinal pain. The authors discuss their experience with the management of sportsman's hernia in professional soccer players competing in national and international competition in a retrospective review of prospectively collected data. Between Marc...

This paper presents a hybrid method for learning a dynamic strategy for a robot soccer team. In this method, an imitation learning scheme based on observed robot soccer games is used as a seed for an experience-guided learning scheme based on reinforcement learning. A lack in the application of classic reinforcement learning to the robot soccer problem is the high number of states to be analyze...

The aim of the present study was to examine the development of on-the-ball skills in soccer-specific laboratory test and to examine how traditional measures of body composition, hormone profile, physical fitness, general perceptual motor skills and soccer skills were related to performance measured in open skill environment among 10, 12, and 14-year-old regional male soccer players (n = 12/grou...

Slow-motion replays are content full segments of broadcast soccer videos. In this paper, we propose an efficient method for detection of slow-motion shots produced by high-speed cameras in soccer broadcasts. A rich set of color, motion, and cinematic features are extracted from compressed video by partial decoding of the MPEG-1 bitstream. Then, slow-motion shots are modeled by SVM classifiers f...

Soccer players are required to anticipate and react continuously in a changing, relatively unpredictable situation in the field. Cognitive functions might be important to be successful in soccer. The current study investigated the relationship between cognitive functions and performance level in elite and sub-elite youth soccer players aged 13-17 years. A total of 47 elite youth soccer players ...