OOIR: Observatory of International Research

Papers

(The TQCC of Science and Medicine in Football is 7. The table below lists those papers that are above that threshold based on CrossRef citation counts [max. 250 papers]. The publications cover those that have been published in the past four years, i.e., from 2021-08-01 to 2025-08-01.)

Article	Citations
A special issue only for one virus: has the football research community responded well to the pandemic?	57
A formative investigation assessing menstrual health literacy in professional women’s football	49
World Congress on Science and Soccer 2025 (WCSS 2025): encourage progress, enhance practice	47
Determining age-specific velocity thresholds for elite youth female soccer players	47
Exploring decision-making practices during coaching sessions in grassroots youth soccer: a mixed-methods study	40
Reliability of spatial-temporal metrics used to assess collective behaviours in football: an in-silico experiment	33
Perspectives of the barriers and enablers to nutritional adherence in professional male academy football players	29
Estimating is not measuring: the use of non-invasive estimations of somatic maturity in youth football	26
Load monitoring, strength training, and recovery in futsal: Practitioners’ perspectives	20
The incidence and characteristics of heading in the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup™	20
Exploring the impact of athletic identity on gender role conflict and athlete injury fear avoidance in male English professional academy football players	19
Are there differences in the attention of elite football players concerning playing positions?	19
An investigation into the effect of audiences on the soccer penalty kick	18
A systematic review of concussion education, knowledge, and attitudes in football	17
Multi-hosting UEFA European Football Championship: fair enough between participating teams?	17
#ReadyToplay: hamstring injuries in women’s football – a two-season prospective cohort study in the Norwegian women’s premier league	17
Monitoring the beautiful adapted game: a 3-year prospective surveillance study of injuries in elite English Para football	17
The effectiveness of 3D multiple object tracking training on decision-making in soccer	17
The associations of transformational leadership and team cohesion on the psychological health of young football players through basic psychological needs	16
Optimising classification in sport: a replication study using physical and technical-tactical performance indicators to classify competitive levels in rugby league match-play	16
Sleep duration is associated with overnight changes in perceived fatigue in elite women soccer players	16
Driving the future of health and performance in Women’s football	16
Perspectives on data analytics for gaining a competitive advantage in football: harnessing data for decision support	15
Injury surveillance in The FA Walking Football Cup 2024	14
The incidence and burden of injury in male adolescent community rugby union in Australia	14

Need a break? The locomotor and tackle pacing profile and loads of women’s rugby league match-play following various between-match turnaround durations	14
The relative age effect in the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA): a mixed methods approach	14
Psychology research in women’s soccer: a scoping review	14
Distinguishing skill from technique in football	13
Lessons from establishing a football-specific registry of anterior cruciate ligament injuries - data collection and first epidemiological data	12
The effect of knee-flexion angle on peak force and muscle activation during isometric knee-flexor strength testing using the Nordbord device in soccer players	12
The emergence of critical incidents in Rugby Union matches using Markov chain analysis	12
Discriminative validity of summarized hip and knee angular accelerations for lower extremity training load quantification in male soccer players during a standardised training drill	11
The effect of bio-banding on technical and tactical indicators of talent identification in academy soccer players	11
Seasonal health tracking of Australian Football League Women’s athletes	11
Time-loss injuries and illnesses at the FIFA world cup Qatar 2022	11
Sport-related concussion knowledge and attitudes of staff working in English elite women’s football: a survey-based study	11
Low sleep quality and morningness-eveningness scale score may impair ball placement but not kicking velocity in youth academy soccer players	11
Effects of concussion on technical performance in professional Australian football	11
Concurrent validation of foot-mounted inertial measurement units for quantifying Australian Rules football kicking	11
Survey of the current practices of German football academies towards biological maturation assessment	11
Where do you go when your periods go?: A case-study examining secondary amenorrhea in a professional internationally-capped female soccer player through the lens of the sport nutritionist	10
Match activity profile and heart rate responses of top-level soccer referees during Brazilian national first and second division and regional championships	10
Broadening our understanding of injury mechanisms to include at-risk situations: an overview of potential injuries at the FIFA men’s World Cup Qatar 2022 ^TM	10
Development of novel calibration model(s) to predict whole-body density in professional football players	10
‘After they see what you have, they contact you’: a qualitative study of national team football players’, coaches’ and clinicians’ experiences in engaging with a context-specific injury surveillance s	9
Do environmental temperatures and altitudes affect physical outputs of elite football athletes in match conditions? A systematic review of the ‘real world’ studies	9
The variability of physical match demands in elite women’s football	7
Additional time error in association football is associated with interruption type and goal difference	7
Factors associated with cooperative network connectedness in a professional Australian football small-sided game	7
The impact of COVID-19 lockdown on soccer positional and physical demands in the Spanish La Liga	7
The relative age effect in male and female English age-grade rugby union: Exploring the gender-specific mechanisms that underpin participation	7
The relative age effect in under-17, under-20, and adult elite female soccer players	7
Maximum speed exposures in Australian rules football: do methods matter?	7
Soccer coaches vs. sport science and medicine staff: who can more accurately predict the skeletal age of high-level youth soccer players?	7
Exploring psychosocial risk factors for dropout in adolescent female soccer	7
Health problems in top-level female football players: a four-season prospective study in the Finnish top football league	7
FIFA Arab Cup tournament with full capacity of spectators during the COVID-19 pandemic: a cross-sectional study	7
A preliminary study of the reliability of soccer skill tests within a modified soccer match simulation protocol	7
Acute pre- and post-competitive soccer match-play changes in neuromuscular factors, physical performance, and muscle response in youth male players	7
Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs in football – a “Keeping SCORE” approach to judicious use	7
Quantity and quality of sleep in young players of a professional football club	7