PLOS ONE Medicine&Health

Effects of tactical dimension and situational variables in throw-ins on the offensive performance in football

by Claudio A. Casal, Vasilis Armatas, José Luis Losada, Michalis Mitrotasios

The aim of the study was to describe the usual practices in the execution of throw-ins by La Liga teams during the 2021–2022 season, identify tactical indicators related to the outcome of plays that start with a throw-in, calculate their predictive power, and finally analyse the influence of situational variables on the effectiveness of these plays. A total of 2,658 throw-ins, during 80 matches were analysed. Two UEFA PRO coaches designed an ad hoc observation instrument “Thrinfoot” and two observers coded the data after a training process. Inter and intra-observer reliability was calculated using Cohen´s Kappa coefficient, revealing almost perfect agreement. Multinomial logistic regression was applied to predict the throw-ins outcome (p2 (OR = 4.1, p