Competing together: Assessing the dynamics of team–team and player–team synchrony in professional association football Ricardo Duarte a,⇑ , Duarte Araújo a , Vanda Correia a,b , Keith Davids c , Pedro Marques d , Michael J. Richardson e a SpertLab, CIPER, Faculdade de Motricidade Humana, Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, Cruz Quebrada Dafundo, Portugal b School of Education and Communication, University of Algarve, Faro, Portugal c School of Exercise and Nutrition Science, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia d Department of Performance Analysis, Manchester City FC, Manchester, United Kingdom e Center for Cognition, Action and Perception, Department of Psychology, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, United States article info Article history: PsycINFO classification: 3020 3720 Keywords: Team synchrony Collective systems Interpersonal dynamics Cluster phase analysis Sports teams abstract This study investigated movement synchronization of players within and between teams during competitive association football performance. Cluster phase analysis was introduced as a method to assess synchronies between whole teams and between individual players with their team as a function of time, ball possession and field direction. Measures of dispersion (SD) and regularity (sample entropy – SampEn – and cross sample entropy – Cross-SampEn) were used to quantify the magnitude and structure of synchrony. Large synergistic relations within each professional team sport col- lective were observed, particularly in the longitudinal direction of the field (0.89 ± 0.12) compared to the lateral direction (0.73 ± 0.16, p < .01). The coupling between the group measures of the two teams also revealed that changes in the synchrony of each team were intimately related (Cross-SampEn values of 0.02 ± 0.01). Interestingly, ball possession did not influence team synchronization levels. In player–team synchronization, individu- als tended to be coordinated under near in-phase modes with team behavior (mean ranges between 7 and 5° of relative phase). The magnitudes of variations were low, but more irregular in time, for the longitudinal (SD: 18 ± 3°; SampEn: 0.07 ± 0.01), compared to the lateral direction (SD: 28 ± 5°; SampEn: 0.06 ± 0.01, p < .05) on-field. Increases in regularity were also observed between the 0167-9457/$ - see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.humov.2013.01.011 ⇑ Corresponding author. Address: Faculty of Human Kinetics, Technical University of Lisbon, Estrada da Costa, 1495-688 Cruz Quebrada, Portugal. Tel.: +351 214149166. E-mail address: rduarte@fmh.utl.pt (R. Duarte). Human Movement Science 32 (2013) 555–566 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Human Movement Science journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/humov