A Practical Guide to Small Sided and Conditioned Games

Small Sided and Conditioned Games (SSCGs) games describe an umbrella term that describes any smaller form of official match-play characterised by either a reduction in player numbers and/or a reduction in pitch dimensions (Hill-Haas et al., 2011) and are classified as small-sided (SSGs) (< 4 vs. 4), medium-sided (MSGs) (5 vs. 5 to 8 vs. 8) and large-sided (LSGs) (>9 vs. 9) games (Owen et al., 2011).

To further this point, SSGs are game-based training drills that are characterised by the alterations of pitch size (Casamichana and Castellano, 2010), player numbers (Castellano, Casamichana and Dellal, 2013) and rules (Hill-Haas et al., 2010). These considerations are of the utmost importance when implementing SSCGs, as altering the task constraints of SSCGs will produce differing technical, tactical (Davids et al., 2013; Ometto et al., 2018) and physiological (Hill-Haas et al., 2011; Rampinini et al., 2007) outcomes. This method of training enables coaches and athletes of all levels to teach and learn not only technical skills but also the tactical, decision-making and physical requirements of the sport (Aguiar et al., 2012; Hill-Haas et al., 2011; Silva et al., 2016) and facilitates the execution of these skills in the performance environment (Davids et al., 2013) which contributes to talent development (Bennett et al., 2018).

The full scope of SSCGs are explored in the following presentation and the accompanying mind maps, which demonstrates the considerations for the alterations associated with the task constraints of SSCGs and the subsequent effects on the outcomes of the games.

References

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