AUTHOR=Clemente Filipe Manuel , Sarmento Hugo , Praça Gibson Moreira , Nikolaidis Pantelis Theodoros , Rosemann Thomas , Knechtle Beat TITLE=Variations of Network Centralities Between Playing Positions in Favorable and Unfavorable Close and Unbalanced Scores During the 2018 FIFA World Cup JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology VOLUME=10 YEAR=2019 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01802 DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01802 ISSN=1664-1078 ABSTRACT=
The purpose of this study is twofold: (i) analyze the variations of network centralities between close (difference of goals equal to one) and unbalanced (difference of goals equal to or greater than two) scores; and (ii) compare the centrality levels between playing positions. The passing sequences that occurred during the 64 matches played by the 32 national teams that participated in the 2018 FIFA World Cup were analyzed and coded. The network centralities of degree prestige and degree centrality were calculated based on the weighted adjacency matrices built from the passing sequences. The results reveal that higher degree centralities of midfielders occurred in unfavorable (lost) unbalanced scores (