A COMPARISON OF PLAYING TACTICS IN THE ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE, SPANISH LA LIGA AND ITALIAN SERIE A

The purpose of this study was to analyze and to characterize the different styles of play (counterattack, fast attack and positional attack) by accessing the interaction contexts in three teams from different European Leagues. The sample consisted of 32 football games of domestic competitions that were analyzed by systematic observation. The type of attack most often used by the Manchester United team is the counterattack, while the teams of Inter Milano and PC Barcelona used more often the positional attack. Interesting results were found related to the behaviors, the zones of the field and the interaction contexts in which the recovery of ball possession is performed, the last pass, and the finalization in the different teams, which allows us to better understand the differences between them.