Selecting the European Championship Squad with Team Network Analysis
By Zsófia Kata Kalmár, Sport Psychologist
I used CX-Ray’s network analysis software with a sports team for the second time this summer, when I supported the Hungarian U17 Women’s National Volleyball Team as a sport psychologist during their preparation for the European Championship. In the early stages of the preparation process, the squad still had to be narrowed down before the final European Championship roster could be selected.
Fortunately, the head coach placed great emphasis not only on physical and technical skills, but also on developing mental skills and understanding team dynamics with team network analysis, both during development and throughout the selection process.
Questionnaire
The original questions were adapted to a sporting environment and for the young athletes better understanding.
- Who do you work with most often?
- Who provides you with useful information?
- Who trains and plays in a forward-thinking and responsible way within the team?
- Who shares their experience as an athlete with you?
- Whose opinion matters to you?
- Who in the team usually praises you when you perform well?
The athletes completed the questionnaire simultaneously on their phones using their individual survey links.
Evaluation
The printed version of the enlarged sociograms were shared with the players without names. Going through the sociograms together revealed the formation of smaller cliques typical of an early-stage team.
According to the athletes, it was extremely useful to see their relationships with one another from an outside perspective.
The visualizations also confirmed much of the feedback they had already received from the coaches and from me. However, they better accepted the findings because the sociograms were based on their own answers.
Results
The results led to very open conversations during our group psychology sessions. Seeing the network helped the players recognize that building a more united team would require conscious effort from everyone.
The anonymous sociograms and the findings were presented to the coaching staff. Interestingly, even without the names, the coaches were able to identify quite accurately who was likely to be represented in different positions within the sociograms.
Next steps
Together with the coaches, next steps required to strengthen the team were discussed, as well as which athletes might unfortunately need to be left out when narrowing down the final squad.
The network analysis was a major help during the first period of the preparation process, and based on my experience, I would confidently recommend using it in sports environments as well.
