Ecological Dynamics Approach to Football

Ecological Dynamics Approach to Football is the first book to apply insights from research in ecological dynamics to the sport of football.

Ecological dynamics is a theoretical framework that draws on ecological psychology, complexity sciences, and dynamical systems concepts in examining interactions among constraints and the emergence of movement and performance behaviours.

This book shows how an ecological dynamics approach can be used to design better practices for the development of football players and for the performance preparation of both players and teams. This book also discusses how practitioner professional development pathways can be framed by an ecological dynamics approach. Ecological Dynamics Approach to Football integrates experiential and empirical knowledge in football, with important implications for both scientific understanding and applications for competing and training.

This book is key reading for students on coaching, sport pedagogy, and football courses as well as sport practitioners working as coaches, trainers, performance analysts, coach educators, and sport science support staff.

Jia Yi Chow is currently the Dean at the Office of Teacher Education & Undergraduate Programmes and a member of staff at the Physical Education and Sports Science Department at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Jia Yi works closely with teachers from the Physical Education and Sports Teachers Academy (PESTA) at the Ministry of Education, Singapore, and sports practitioners at Sport Singapore.

Keith Davids is a Professor of Motor Learning in the School of Sport & Physical Activity, Sheffield Hallam University, UK. He has worked on high-performance sport development programmes including FIFA's Training Centre – Taking Football Forward series, the Football Association's youth award (FAYA), and the Scottish Football Association's children's coaching licence (ACL), as well as the New Zealand South Island Academy, the Queensland Academy of Sport, the Australian Institute of Sport, Diving Australia, and the English Institute of Sport.

Duarte Araújo is a Professor of Psychology and Motor Behaviour and Head of the Laboratory of Expertise in Sport of the Faculty of Human Kinetics at the University of Lisbon, Portugal. He leads the research unit CIPER – Interdisciplinary Centre for the study of Human Performance, which includes around 200 researchers. He works on high-performance programmes in football and other Olympic sports, including personalised work with individual athletes and coaches, as well as sports institutions and clubs worldwide.