Soccer and its unfolding in times of crisis Covid-19: Critical review

Abstract

Many unfolding’s concerning the Covid-19 crisis within the soccer context, from the impact on the training of young footballers to high performance. In this paper, it was explored through a critical literature review, the strategic points, and scenarios within soccer and some of its main unfolding’s. The aim of the study was to identify the main strands of study on the research developed during 2020 around the topic of Covid-19 and football and, to try to understand the impact that the absence of football practice has on the construction of skills in this generation of young footballers.A systematic literature review based on the PRISMA protocol was used as methodology. Through a deductive analysis three clusters were created: business, health, and wellness and socio-cultural.As main results, the professional soccer scenario had the largest number of studies, followed by professional and amateur soccer. In the field of study analysis area, the field of health and well-being was the one where more studies were found and, the subject’s control and transmission and physiological impacts were the most highlighted.This study provides an opportunity to assess how processes within football are being studied in a period of crisis, which has quickly responded to the needs of professional soccer and little or no work force has been shifted to seek solutions for the resumption of soccer practice in the lower ranks. The study also highlights a window of opportunity for the development of studies in the typology of training soccer, it is suggested that in future research work can develop studies in this direction.