Comparison of Shooting Accuracy between Dominant and Non-

Dominant Leg among Indonesian Soccer School Players

Saharuddin Ita and Pahala Tua Hutajulu

Department of Physical Education, Health, and Recreation, Cenderawasih University, Abepura, Jayapura, Indonesia

saharuddinita@yahoo.com

Keywords: Shooting, Accuracy, Dominant Leg, Soccer school.

Abstract: In this study, the comparison of shooting accuracy between dominant and non-dominant leg within resting

state and fatigued state among Indonesian soccer school players was examined. Fifteen soccer school

players from the Batik Soccer School, Jayapura, Indonesia, volunteered to participate in this study. The

subjects had a mean age of 16.44 ± 0.86 (years), a mean height of 1.61 ± 0.042 (m) and a mean weight of

58.60 ± 3.81(kg). The comparison research method and shooting target boards were applied. The results

showed that the shooting accuracy score between dominant and non-dominant leg within resting state and

fatigued state were of 3.49:2.26 and 3.36:1.87 respectively (p<0.05). Significant differences between

dominant and non-dominant leg indicated unbalanced muscle strength of both legs. The shooting skill

among Indonesian soccer school players was found at a relatively low level. Furthermore, coaching method

and curriculum in soccer school should be examined comprehensively.

1 INTRODUCTION

Soccer is known as the most popular sport in the

world, including Indonesia. It involves more than

270 million practitioners in more than 200 countries

(FIFA, 2016). This sport is played by both men and

women, age ranging from children to adults, at

various levels of ability. The huge number of

participants led to the growth of soccer clubs at

various levels, both professional and amateur,

together with large numbers of tournaments and

championships. However, the FIFA World Cup

tournament is the highest level of soccer tournament

in the world, and since its formation only listed 43

countries in the quarter finals and 8 countries as

winners, namely Brazil, Germany, Italy, Argentina,

Uruguay, France, England, and Spain (Stokkermans,

2015). The international successes of the former

countries was largely considered due to their

comprehensive talent identification and development

systems, since those factors were regarded as the

breeding ground for the next generation of top-level

athletes (Holt, 2002). Soccer school was known as

an organization or an independent legal entity whose

primary objective is to provide players with long-

term training through the provision of the necessary

training facilities and infrastructure. For this reason,

soccer school, a place where youth talent

identification, coaching, and education begin in

youth players, should be listed as one of the

determining factors in national team achievement. In

Indonesia, soccer school is known well as an

informal education institution, established for more

than 10 years and spread all over the country.

Unfortunately, very limited research has been

conducted related to Indonesian soccer schools.

In soccer games, strategies and techniques must

be developed in order to create an interesting game

and a winning team. Basic techniques of soccer are

divided into two: with and without the ball. Basic

techniques with the ball are: shooting, passing,

receiving, dribbling, keeping, heading, throwing-in,

and some related to goalkeeper techniques. Basic

techniques without the ball are running, jumping,

and feinting (Carr, 2005). Since the main purpose in

soccer games is to score as many goals as possible

against the opposing team, shooting technique

became the main basic technique and the most

important aim of training programs in young

players. These facts lead many researchers focused

on shooting technique (Kellis and Katis, 2007;

Bjelica, Popović, and Petković, 2013; Mohammed

and Kohl, 2016). Shooting quality is determined by

power and accuracy (Shan et al., 2012). Shooting

power is associated with the momentum of the leg

while shooting accuracy means precision of the ball

towards the target point, which is the goal. Accuracy

is the decisive factor in scoring goals; hence

practicing accuracy over power was more

emphasized (Hargreaves and Bate, 2010). Carr

Ita, S. and Hutajulu, P.

Comparison of Shooting Accuracy between Dominant and Non-Dominant Leg among Indonesian Soccer School Players.

In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Sports Science, Health and Physical Education (ICSSHPE 2017) - Volume 1, pages 163-167

ISBN: 978-989-758-317-9

163

(2005) suggests that the best shooting accuracy can

be achieved by using the instep. Instep position is an

area on top of foot or one can say at the braided

shoelaces area.

It has been known the importance of hand and

leg dominance, where the second one has been given

minimal attention (Spry, Zebas, and Visser, 1993).

In the case of hand dominance, while one hand is

being used the other has no significant roles.

Contrarily, the notion of leg dominance should be

viewed in a different perspective considering the

roles of the legs in different tasks such as mobility

and stability. While a leg is being used, such as to

shoot a ball, the other leg has an important role of

postural control and stability (Velotta et al., 2011).

Numbers of research have been conducted on leg

dominance, giving the fact that the characteristics of

the dominant leg and non-dominant leg are generally

different (Rahnama, Lees, and Bambaecichi, 2005;

Spry, Zebas, and Visser , 1993; Velotta et al., 2011;

Witkowski et al., 2011; Bjelica, Popović, and

Petković, 2013). Researchers generally make the

assumption that the dominant leg is the preferred

limb and the non-dominant leg is the non-preferred

limb. In this study the dominant leg is identified as

the preferred leg or the leg frequently used in

shooting the ball (Velotta et al., 2011).

Soccer players, particularly junior players, tend

to use the dominant leg only (Costa Silva et al.,

2015). However, unbalanced use of one leg only

induced asymmetries musculoskeletal (Maupas et

al., 2002). Junior football players under-18 years old

often at times experience muscle asymmetries

(Capranica et al., 1992). For this reason, it is very

important for the junior players to increase muscle

strength balance in both legs. Although many studies

exist with junior league players, limited research has

been conducted with soccer school players. This

study was also conducted in order to review the

coaching method and curriculum in soccer school in

Indonesia.

The aim of this study was to compare accuracy

of shooting between dominant and non-dominant leg

among Indonesian soccer school players. The

comparison method was applied in two states: rest

and fatigued state. This study was conducted as an

evaluation model for the soccer school program. The

question arises: to what degree is the difference of

accuracy shooting between the dominant and non-

dominant leg in soccer school players and how to

enhance the balance performance of both legs?

2 METHODS

2.1 Participants

Fifteen soccer school players from the Batik Soccer

School, Jayapura, Indonesia, volunteered to be

subjects. The criteria for selecting players for the

sample were as follows: being a student of the

soccer school for two years, member of U-18’s

class, and having a good health condition. Research

was conducted at Cigombong Soccer Field,

Jayapura, Papua, Indonesia. Batik soccer school

located in Jayapura city was chosen since Jayapura

is known as one of the cities with a considerable

source of talented players for the Indonesia national

team.

2.2 Procedure

Data collecting procedures to measure the accuracy

of shooting were as follows: warm-up, stretching,

shooting trials, and finally shooting accuracy test.

Each player was asked to shoot on target from the

distance of 20 meters, with both dominant and non-

dominant legs, within two different conditions: rest

and fatigue. At rest condition, players had to shoot

only if their heart rate was under 90 bpm (bit per

minute), while fatigue condition means players had

to complete ten squats before shooting. Those four

variables were outlined in table 1.

Table 1: Shooting Test Variables.

Test Variables

Condition

DR: Shoot with dominant leg

in rest state

NR: Shoot with non-dominant

leg in rest state

Rest state:

player’s heart rate

under 90 bpm

DF: Shoot with dominant leg

in fatigue state

NF: Shoot with non-dominant

leg in fatigue state

Fatigue state:

player complete 10

squats before shoot.

Each player performed a total of ten shoots for

each variable, using a standard soccer ball and a

target board. The target board was adapted from the

one previously developed by University of

Montenegro (Bjelica, Popović, and Petković, 2013)

with simplified scaling system (1 – 10) for easy

scoring. The midpoint of the target board was given

the highest score of 10 and the edge of the target

board was given a score of 1, while every failure to

make contact with the board was given a score of 0.

ICSSHPE 2017 - 2nd International Conference on Sports Science, Health and Physical Education

164

2.3 Data Analysis

The obtained data was calculated using descriptive

statistics; proceeded with the independent t-test

calculation to determine whether there were

significant differences of the four variables. The

analysis provided the answers to the question of

whether there were differences between shooting.

3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

From the descriptive analysis, it is known that the

fifteen players who participated in this study have

the following characteristics: age 16.44 ± 0.86 years,

height 161.13 ± 4.17 cm, and weight 58.60 ± 3.81

kg. Descriptive statistics of the sample profiles and

shooting scores are given in table 2.

Table 2: Descriptive statistics

Min

Max

Age (years)

16.44

0.86

0.22

15.02

17.74

2.72

-1.11

-0.30

Height (cm)

161.13

4.17

1.08

153

166

-0.39

-0.80

Weight (kg)

58.6

3.81

0.98

0.59

-0.57

3.49

0.86

0.22

1.7

3.3

0.11

-0.14

2.26

0.90

0.23

0.5

3.4

2.9

-0.62

-0.63

3.36

1.11

0.29

1.9

5.8

3.9

0.10

0.80

1.87

0.89

0.23

0.4

3.7

3.3

-0.11

0.02

Legend: M – mean, SD –standard deviations, SE– standard errors, Min–minimum value, Max–maksimum value, R–

range of value, Ku–Kurtosis, dan Sk–Skewness.

The result of independent t-test at a significant

level of p < 0.05 was shown in table 3. It revealed

significant differences of shooting accuracy between

dominant and non-dominant legs both in rest and

fatigued states. The value of this comparison is 7.30.

Table 3: Independent t-test calculation.

*7.30

0.47

*-4.06

*6.56

1.60

*9.94

* p < 0,05

Figure 1 shows the comparison of shooting

accuracy score between dominant and non-dominant

legs in a resting state. The shooting score

comparison of 3.49:2.26 revealed a significant

difference.

Figure 1: Comparison of shooting accuracy score between

dominant and non-dominant leg in a resting state.

Furthermore, figure 2 shows the comparison of

shooting accuracy score between dominant and non-

dominant legs in a fatigued state. Like in a resting

state, it also shows significant difference between

these two variables. The value of this comparison is

9.94 with shooting score comparison of 3.36:1.87.

Figure 2: Comparison of shooting accuracy score between

dominant and non-dominant leg in a fatigue state.

The previous study from Montenegro junior

premier league revealed that the shooting score

comparison in resting state of 5.86:4.76 and in

fatigued state of 5.58:4.71 (values were normalized

in 0-10 scale). We could notice that shooting quality

of Batik soccer school students was lower than that

of the junior premier league. This affirmed that the

basic techniques learned and applied in the soccer

school were not yet optimum, even though instep

shooting together with dribbling is the most

fundamental stage in the youth coaching curriculum

(National Soccer Coaches Association of America,

Comparison of Shooting Accuracy between Dominant and Non-Dominant Leg among Indonesian Soccer School Players

165

2014). The players volunteering for this study had

not even conducted shooting practice using target

boards before. Wide range of shooting ability,

peculiarly in a fatigue condition, indicated

unbalanced muscle strength of both legs in players.

This is noteworthy since the unbalanced use of one

leg induced asymmetries musculoskeletal and may

cause injury to the players in the future.

Low quality in shooting and unbalanced use of

both legs among Indonesian soccer school soccer

players indicated that the coaching method and

soccer school curriculum should be examined

comprehensively. Scheunemann at al. (2012) stated

in their book about soccer school curriculum, that

one of the most fundamental weaknesses in the

youth player development system in Indonesia was

the lack of focus of the soccer school organization.

Soccer school mostly focuses on reaching the

victory of the club rather than the player’s

competency, which are; technique, tactics, physical

training and character. Cholid (2014) also analyzed

the soccer school system and determined that

generally soccer school in Indonesia still applies an

internal curriculum instead of a national standard

curriculum. All stakeholders in Indonesian soccer

schools need to review the implementation of

coaching standard and education of soccer school, in

order to improve the quality of the youth talent

development system, and eventually improve the

national team performance to higher levels. Batik

soccer school has been informed of the results

revealed in this study and currently they are

reviewing their curriculum.

4 CONCLUSIONS

The comparison of shooting accuracy between

dominant and non-dominant leg within resting state

and fatigued state among Indonesian soccer school

players has been studied. Significant differences

between dominant and non-dominant leg indicated

unbalanced muscle strength of both legs. The

shooting skill among Indonesian soccer school

players was found to be at a relatively low level, and

coaching method and curriculum in soccer school

should be examined comprehensively.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to all players for their efforts, Batik Soccer

School for the collaboration, and Herman Mayoseph

for his assist in technical preparation and data

collection of this study.

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