RODRIGO ARANDA-MALAVÉS ^1,2 Claudio A. Casal ³ Joaquin Gonzalez Rodenas ⁴ Andrés Tudela-Desantes ^2* Pedro De Matías-Cid ² Miquel Moltó-Llorens ² RAFAEL ARANDA ²

• ¹ Doctoral School, Catholic University of Valencia San Vicente Mártir, Valencia, Spain
• ² Department of Physical and Sports Education, Faculty of Physical Education and Sport Sciences, University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain
• ³ Facultad de Ciencias de la Actividad Física y el Deporte, Universidad Católica de Valencia San Vicente Mártir, Valencia, Spain
• ⁴ Center for Sports Studies, Rey Juan Carlos University, Móstoles, Madrid, Spain

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of tactical and contextual dimensions on the offensive performance, in terms of degree of penetration or goal scoring opportunities creation, of direct attacks in English Premier League (EPL) and Spanish La Liga. A total amount of 10,078 team possessions from 40 random La Liga and EPL matches were selected. From that, 2384 possession categorized as open play direct attacks were selected for analysis. First univariate binary regression analysis and further construction of adjusted binary multivariate logistic regression. Four independent tactical dimensions: initial zone, initial opponent position, initial opponent pressure and width of the possession, as well as four independent contextual dimensions: match location, match status, quality of opponent and quality of the observed team, were initially analyzed to predict penetration performance on one hand and scoring opportunity performance on the other hand. The results showed that the distribution of the type of attacks was different in La Liga and EPL (χ 2 =11.015, p =.001), but direct attacks were not different in La Liga and EPL in terms of performance. Three of the four tactical dimensions (initial zone, initial opponent position, and width of the possession) showed association with penetration performance (p<.01), while only width of the possession showed association with scoring opportunity performance (p<.01). Two of the four contextual dimensions (match status and quality of observed team) showed association with penetration performance (p < .05), while none of them showed association with scoring opportunity performance. In conclusion, direct attacks are frequent in EPL and LaLiga but very ineffective offensively in terms of creation of goal scoring opportunities. The tactical dimensions that explain a higher effectiveness in terms of getting penetrative performance are vertical progression through the field, attacking against a defensive low-block, as well as starting the team possessions from the defensive zones instead of middle zones, while the only tactical dimension that explain higher performance in creating goal scoring opportunities (GSO) is vertical progression. Contextual dimensions such as the match status and team level also influence the offensive penetration performance during direct attacks but not GSO performance.