Comparison of internal and external loads in different friendly and official matches of professional female soccer players
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24310/riccafd.14.3.2025.22006Keywords:
soccer female, external load, gps, preseason trainingAbstract
Objectives: To describe the internal and external load during friendly matches and compare their performance with official matches in a professional women's soccer team. Methodology: Seventeen professional soccer players from the Mexican first division league participated. Three friendly matches were analyzed, played against an Under-18 women's team (U-18 F), an Under-14 men's team (U-14 M), and a university team (COLL), as well as three regular season matches. External load was assessed using total distance (TD), high-intensity distance (HID), number of accelerations (ACC), number of decelerations (DCC), maximum speed (MS), and Player Load (PL), recorded with the WIMU PRO™ system. Internal load was estimated through the perceived exertion of the session (s-RPE). Differences between matches were analysed using effect sizes (ES) with 90% confidence intervals (90%CL). Results: The friendly match against the U14M team had the highest internal and external load values compared to the other friendly matches. Large effect sizes (ES > 2.0) were observed in total distance when comparing some friendly matches with official matches. No relevant differences were identified in the internal and external load variables between the U-14 M friendly match and two of the official matches analysed. Conclusion: In the context of this study, the friendly matches against the U-18 F and COLL teams did not reproduce the demands observed in official matches. In contrast, the friendly match against the U-14 M team showed similar internal and external demands in some variables recorded during official competition. These findings should be interpreted considering the limitations of the study and should not be generalized to other contexts.
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