The effectiveness of a contextual approach to assessing the individual actions of highly qualified football players participating in various European competitions

Relevance. Today, the analysis of football players' game actions is being seriously criticized, and not without reason, based on a number of statistical parameters that do not fully reflect the essence of what is happening on the field. Experts emphasize that the significance of these indicators is greatly exaggerated. It should be noted that when analyzing statistical indicators of the actions of a football player or a team, the digital values obtained without interpretation, taking into account the context of the game situation, can mislead the researcher and. accordingly, to determine incorrect conclusions The aim of the study was to evaluate the individual defensive actions of highly qualified football players playing in the leading European championships from the perspective of a contextual approach to the analysis of competitive performance indicators. Methodology. Registration and evaluation of the effectiveness of individual actions in defense were carried out in the process of expert analysis of video recordings of matches of leading European football competitions based on a contextual approach. The reason for their allocation during the game was to obtain tactical advantages for the players of the defending team when using personal and zone methods of ball selection. Results. According to the results of the study, it was found that the greatest number of successful defensive actions were revealed in the Spanish and English championships, as well as in the Champions League games with the participation of leading European teams. There is also a relatively high number of successful "personal selections" of the ball from the players of the German and Russian championships. At the same time, in these championships, as well as in the Italian Championship and in the European Cup, very low indicators were determined for "playing ahead of the curve", "interception" and "zonal selection" of the ball. Conclusion. The results of the study allow us to conclude that a contextual approach to assessing individual actions of football players in defense is a fairly effective way to obtain objective indicators of the success of competitive activity of highly qualified football players, since the data obtained correlate fairly accurately with the club rating of national associations that are members of UEFA.