Agreement Between Dribble and Change of Direction Deficits to Assess Directional Asymmetry in Young Elite Football Players

This study aimed to examine the agreement between asymmetries of dribble and change
of direction (COD) deficits and to determine their potential difference to each other. Sixteen young
elite football players were recruited and tested for sprint (over 10 m), dribbling (90°CODdribbling) and
COD (90°CODrunning) performance in dominant (fastest) and non-dominant (slowest) directions.
Dribble and COD deficits were computed to express dribbling and COD ability without the
influence of acceleration. The asymmetric index (AI%) of both dribble and COD deficits were
obtained for both directions. The level of agreement between dribble and COD deficits was
assessed by Cohen’s kappa statistic (κ). Results showed that AI% measured by dribble and COD
deficits presented a poor level of agreement (κ = −0.159), indicating their imbalance did not favor
the same direction. Moreover, AI% of the dribble deficit was significantly higher than those of the
COD deficit. This study demonstrated that asymmetries in dribbling and change of direction
performance (measured by dribble and COD deficit) were not in agreement to favor the same
direction, also displaying a significant difference to each other. Practitioners should consider the
task-specificity of asymmetry to reduce the imbalance in dribbling and COD performance.