Women's soccer: analysis of behavioral tendencies of top performance players' to compete, establish goals and win

Abstract

Soccer has transcended the barrier of genders, increasing women's interest in practicing such sport. The main objective of this study is to analyze, in the environment of female soccer teams, the athletes' perception on the individual tendencies of competitive behavior to win, compete and establish goals, as well as to identify the existing relation between age groups and practice time. The sample consisted of 113 female athletes (21.27 ± 3.69 years) of 10 soccer teams who were evaluated by means of the Exploratory Descriptive Method using the tool Behavioral Inventory for the Evaluation of Competitive Tendencies known as ACS2, on the domains Competing (TQ1), Winning (TQ2) and Establishing Goals (TQ3), which are parts of the ACS System. Spearman's correlation coefficient was used for the statistical analyses with a significance level of p < 0.05. The results show that athletes older than 26 with 13 years of practice and over obtained the highest values for the correlations, being respectively, rs = 0.53 and rs = 0.35 for TQ1, and rs = 0.50 and rs = 0.36 for TQ3. The TQ2 domain presented values which were the closest to those among the age groups. It has been observed that age and practice times appear to be predictors of the possible increase in the behavioral tendencies when it comes to winning. The athletes' attributions, which guide them to the competition aimed at winning before they are committed to the goals they intend to reach, may change the context of the individual values inherent to the sport. The results suggest that, in order to the athletes achieve a stance of highlight in terms of performance, they should undergo a continuous and prolonged practice, which in turn means a longer practice time and older age.