98 Team timeout calling in handball Fernando Gomes, Anna Volossovitch and António P. Ferreira SpertLab – Faculdade de Motricidade Humana – Universidade de Lisboa Abstract Team timeout (TTO) in handball is a powerful instrument that influences the team’s performance. This study aimed to identify the different contexts of a TTO calling in handball according to the following contextual variables: 1) match status (current score difference), 2) goals scored in the last five ball possessions, 3) goals allowed in the last five ball possessions, 4) game period, and 5) match location. The sample consisted of 2178 TTOs registered in 720 match reports of official statistics of the ASOBAL League, seasons 2009/2010, 2010/2011 and 2011/2012. The results suggest that 71.0% of TTOs were called when the match status was “balanced” or “lose”, 57.0% of TTOs occurred in the last ten minutes of each period and 57.9% of TTOs were called when the ratio between offensive and defensive short-term performances became negative. The interaction between match status, game period and short-term offensive and defensive performance was confirmed as the main source that causes handball coaches to call TTO. Further studies should focus on the contents of coaches’ interventions during a TTO, as well as on its consequences on team performance in handball. Keywords: Game analysis, handball, timeout, contextual variables. 1. Introduction During a game, coaches have to make several decisions in a short period of time, and this decision-making process is influenced by numerous factors related to match context and knowledge of the players’ personal characteristics (Gilbert et al., 1999). Among the various options available to handball coaches to control the course of the match, the two major resources are the substitution of players, which is unlimited, and timeout calling. The instructions provided by coaches during timeout are one of the crucial tools of team management, namely in critical game situations or in the last minutes of the game (Taylor and Demick, 1994; Hastie, 1999; Bar-Eli and Tractinsky, 2000; Gómez et al., 2011; Sampaio et al., 2013). In the last two decades the studies considered timeout an important match event in sport games such as basketball (Mace et al., 1992; Roane et al., 2004), volleyball (Zetou et al., 2008) and table tennis (Wang et al., 2010). These studies focused on two main issues: the analysis of performance variability before and after timeout calling (Mace et al., 1992; Roane et al., 2004; Zetou et al., 2008; Gómez et al., 2011; Permut, 2011; Saavedra et al., 2012; Sampaio et al., 2013) and the development of a reliable and valid International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport 2014, 14, 98-110