This study investigated the presence of neuropsychological deficits associated with hitting the ball with one's head (heading) during soccer play. A neuro-cognitive test battery was administered to 60 male soccer players, high school, amateur and professional level, and 12 nonplaying control participants. The effects of currently reported heading behavior as well as that of estimated lifetime h...

This paper presents the autonomous table soccer robot KiRo. KiRo provides a competitive challenge for even advanced human players and is well suited as a toy or even as a training partner for professional players. Moreover, the table soccer game represents a demanding testbed for evaluating a multitude of techniques and approaches in the fields of robotics and artificial intelligence. KiRo has ...

Stereopsis is one of several visual depth cues. It has been evaluated for athletes of different types of sports in the past. However, most studies do not cover the full range of stereopsis performance. Therefore, we propose computer-supported stereopsis tests that provide an extended assessment and analysis of stereopsis performance including stereo acuity and response times. By providing stati...

This study aimed to analyze the angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE-I/D) allelic and genotypic frequencies in Brazilian soccer players of different ages. The study group comprised 353 players from first-division clubs in the under (U)-14, U-15, U-17, U-20, and professional categories. The allelic and genotypic frequencies did not differ significantly in any of the categories between the group of...

BACKGROUND There are well-known challenges to implementing injury prevention strategies in amateur soccer, but information from other soccer settings is scarce. This cross-sectional survey analysed the injury prevention perceptions of soccer coaches, fitness coaches and physiotherapists from 4 male teams in a professional youth soccer academy. METHODS The respondents (n=18) completed a web-ba...

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the physiological functions of a professional soccer team in the North American Soccer League (NASL). Eighteen players were evaluated on cardiorespiratory function, endurance performance, body composition, blood chemistry, and motor fitness measures near the end of their competitive season. The following means were observed: age, 26 yrs; height, 176 cm;...

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of static and dynamic stretching within a pre-exercise warm-up on hip dynamic range of motion (DROM) during instep kicking in professional soccer players. The kicking motions of dominant legs were captured from 18 professional adult male soccer players (height: 180.38 ± 7.34 cm; mass: 69.77 ± 9.73 kg; age: 19.22 ± 1.83 years) using 4 3-dimens...

Clinical examination of the knee involves eliciting certain signs that may indicate the presence of knee pathology. One such is quadriceps wasting. This occurs most commonly as the result of disuse or from a painful or unstable lesion of the knee. Comparing the circumference of the thighs at a set level above the patella is the standard method of testing for atrophy. 1 2 This, however, assumes ...

BACKGROUND The association between the lipid profiles level and the incidence and severity of coronary heart disease (CHD) is very pronounced in epidemiological studies, and an inverse relation between physical fitness and the incidence of coronary heart disease has been observed in many studies. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of a soccer match on lipid parameters of profes...

Projecting how a player’s skill level will evolve in the future is a crucial problem faced by sports teams. Traditionally, player projections have been evaluated by human scouts, who are subjective and may suffer from biases. More recently, there has been interest in automated projection systems such as the PECOTA system for baseball and the CARMELO system for basketball. In this paper, we pres...