In this article, we present an original method to measure the rate of positional change observed during a soccer match based on the relative spatial distribution of players on the pitch. This is justified as players use their relative position as a key tactical tool to contribute to their team’s objectives. A temporal network representation of the game was used, where nodes are players discretely clustered by physical proximity into disjoint clusters. This study, observational and descriptive in nature, was applied to a set of matches from a major European national football league, with players’ coordinates sampled at 10Hz, resulting in $\approx$ 60,000 network samples per match. We took an information theoretic approach to measuring the distance between successive samples. Significant correlations were found between measurements and key match events that are empirically known to result in players jostling for position, such as when striving to get unmarked or to mark. These events increase the information distance between samples, while breaks in game play have the opposite effect. Having a measurement of dynamic, structural change in soccer is an original contribution that can complement full match statistical analysis. Hierarchical decomposition of the measurements is possible at multiple levels, building an overall multi-layer map that provides insights into the game dynamics, from the individual player, to the clusters of interacting players, up to the teams and their matches. This comprehensive view of the players’ interacting behavior can be useful for training, tactics and strategy development.

在本文中，我们提出了一种原始方法，用于根据球场上球员的相对空间分布来测量足球比赛期间观察到的位置变化率。这是合理的，因为球员使用他们的相对位置作为关键战术工具来为球队的目标做出贡献。使用了游戏的时间网络表示，其中节点是通过物理距离离散地聚集成不相交集群的玩家。这项研究本质上是观察性和描述性的，应用于欧洲主要国家足球联赛的一组比赛，球员坐标以 10Hz 采样，结果$\approx$每场比赛 60,000 个网络样本。我们采用信息论方法来测量连续样本之间的距离。在测量和关键比赛事件之间发现了显着的相关性，这些事件根据经验已知会导致球员争夺位置，例如在努力获得无人盯防或盯防时。这些事件增加了样本之间的信息距离，而游戏中断会产生相反的效果。测量足球的动态、结构变化是一项原创性贡献，可以补充完整的比赛统计分析。可以在多个级别对测量进行分层分解，构建一个整体的多层地图，提供对游戏动态的洞察，从单个玩家到互动玩家的集群，再到球队及其比赛。