The study reveals first-ever findings balance trade-offs between line-up stability for optimal match performance and load management to preserve players’ health.
You will also find in this study:
- Overall match-to-match rotation numbers were between two and three per team and not clearly different between leagues, with coaches of the Ligue 1/Serie A and the Eredivisie tending to perform the most (around three) and the least (less than two) number of rotations, respectively.
- There were some small increasing trends in match-to-match rotations across the years in some leagues only (i.e., from two to three in the Premier League and La Liga) but no apparent differences between home and away matches.
- The key factors that could affect coaches’ rotation strategies were ranked in relation to their respective contribution to the model – with rest days, recent performance, competition type, travel distance to the previous match, teams status (i.e., Elo ranking) being the top contributors to increased match-to-match rotations.
