Status of Match Analysis Research in Indoor and Beach Volleyball: A bibliometric analysis

Over the last decade, the growth of match analysis in indoor and beach volleyball indicates the relevance of the subject to provide a structured and up-to-date picture of the state of the art. The purpose of this article was to present a bibliometric analysis of articles on match analysis in indoor and beach volleyball. A total of 179 and 44 articles from indoor and beach volleyball, respectively, indexed in Web of Science or Scopus were reviewed. Outcome measures were extracted and analyzed using R Bibliometrics package or VOSviewer software. Bibliometric indicators of productivity included: number of articles published per year, most productive authors, institutions, countries and journals, top-10 most cited articles, most frequent topics, and authors co-authorship. Match analysis was covered in 82.3% in volleyball and 75% in beach volleyball in the last ten years, with most articles published in few journals. Authors affiliated in institutions from Portugal (volleyball) and Spain (beach volleyball) seemed to have made the largest contribution to this area. The trending topics of the most cited studies included quality of opposition (volleyball) and tactical-technical aspects (beach volleyball). In both sports, tactical-technical actions were the most studied units of analysis, with the international-level adult male game being the most investigated. In conclusion, this study provides research profiling, classifications for the initial research phase and research direction for future research in this subject area.