Cooperative networks in team invasion games: A systematic mapping review

Team invasion games are sports in which individual team members interact and exchange information to coordinate their behaviours and actions in pursuit of the common goal of winning matches. Researchers have used social network analysis to quantify the cooperative behaviours of sports teams (cooperative network analysis), yet this research exists across an array of disciplines and uses various methods. Therefore, accessibility for practitioners and researchers interested in using it to quantify team cooperation in team invasion games may be limited. This systematic mapping review aimed to identify, report and discuss research in this emerging research area. Articles were systematically searched in electronic databases and reference list scans resulting in 112 papers included. Football was the most studied sport (n  =  91), and passing was the most observed interaction between players within a sports team (n  =  107). This review further revealed a lack of consistency in reporting between the included studies with respect to nomenclature and network measures. A comprehensive map of the current literature on the use of cooperative network analysis in team invasion games is provided which can be used by practitioners and researchers tasked with or interested in analysing team performance.