Analysis of patterns of offensive of the Spanish National Soccer Team in the 2014 FIFA® World Cup

This paper aims to identify the patterns of offensive transition (defense-attack) of the Spain National Soccer Team during the 2010 FIFA® World Cup through the analysis of frequency of the forms of ball acquisition/recovery (FAR) and the areas of the field where these actions took place. The sample comprises 895 offensive sequences performed during the 7 matches of the Spain National Team in the tournament. For data collection, it was performed observations of televised matches. Data were registered and quantified by Excel spreadsheets. Descriptive analysis (frequency and percentage) was performed for the variables "area" and "FAR". Chi-squared test (χ2) was used to compare case distribution among the values of the analyzed variables with significance level of p