Is playing at altitude affecting the England team?
In an earlier blog, Bryan Saunders, one of my NTU colleagues, examined the issue of how the altitude in South Africa might affect the performance of the English team. Following England’s lacklustre and dismal performance against Algeria, plenty of excuses and reasons were given for the poor performance, although (to my knowledge), altitude wasn’t one of them. But what does the research evidence actually say? Can attitude triumph over altitude?
It has long been known that altitude affects sporting performance although it was only very recently (2007) that the Federation of International Football Associations (FIFA), banned international matches from being played at more than 2500 metres above sea level. Furthermore, because of the effects of acute exposure to altitude on performance, FIFA’s own Sport Medicine Commission recommends that football matches above 3000 metres should only be played after an acclimatisation period of 10 days.
In 2007, the British Medical Journal published a really interesting paper [Altitude and athletic performance: statistical analysis using football results] by Patrick McSharry of the University of Oxford. McSharry’s study attempted to quantify the effect of altitude on the national South American football teams by statistically analysing the large FIFA database of 1460 international football matches spanning over 100 years (from 1900 to 2004) of 10 countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela). McSharry claimed that no previous study had ever examined (or quantified) the direct link between altitude and international football performance. The study examined four specific variables: (i) the probability of a win, (ii) the number of goals scored, (iii) the number of goals conceded, and (iv) the altitude difference between the home venue of a specific team and that of the opposition. What is unique about this statistical study is that unlike most other altitude studies, it wasn’t susceptible to the effects of any particular individual or team.
Looking at all these variables, the study very clearly showed that altitude had a very (statistically) significant negative impact on the physiological performance of soccer teams. McSharry highlighted that ‘low altitude teams’ (LATs) underperformed when playing against high altitude teams (HATs) in South America. More specifically, the analysis revealed that HATs scored more goals and conceded fewer goals as altitude increased. HATs also had a greater probability of winning. McSharry concluded that altitude provides a significant advantage for HATs when playing international football games at both low and high altitudes. He also concluded that LATs are sufficiently unable to acclimatise to high altitude leading to a reduction in physiological performance. Based on his findings, McSharry believes that when it comes to team selection, careful thought and preparation are needed as physiological performance clearly doesn’t protect against the effect of altitude.
However, as McSharry acknowledges, the weakness of his study is the difficulty in controlling for other factors that influence football outcome, such as the quality of the training, the manager, team spirit and team attitude. None of this bodes particularly well for England. All we can hope is that skill, ability and attitude will win through.
Professor Mark Griffiths, psychologist, Nottingham Trent University
To speak to Mark, call the University Press Office directly on 0115 848 8785 or email worldcup@ntu.ac.uk
[To view Nottingham Trent University’s team of World Cup experts go to www.ntu.ac.uk/worldcup]
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