Abstract
Starting from the assumption that there are some differences in the course of result in relation to the final result outcome, the aim of this research is to determine in what time segment of a match the partial result mostly makes a difference between winning and losing a match. The research was done on the sample of 101 matches of the World Championship for Men held in 2009 in Croatia, and included all of the matches which ended in a victory or a defeat. The variables are defined by the number of scored goals and the achieved score difference in six ten-minute time segments of a match. In the context of data processing, we calculated basic descriptive and distribution statistic parameters. The differences between the number of scored goals and the achieved score difference in six tenminute periods of a match between the winning and the losing teams were determined by variance analysis. Variance analysis confirmed statistically significant differences in both groups of the variables. The winning teams score most goals in the penultimate segment of the game (40-50 min) and they achieve the biggest score difference in the second (10-20min) and the penultimate period (40-50min). The winning teams score least goals in the first ten minutes of the match, and they achieve the smallest score difference in the last ten minutes of the match. The losing teams score most goals in the last sixth and least goals in the first sixth of a match. Contrary to the winning teams, the losing teams achieve the biggest negative difference in the second and the fifth, and the smallest one in the last sixth of a match. The results of the research reveal the need to give special attention to tactical preparing and leading of the match in the training process, i.e. to those segments of the match which have special significance for the final result outcome.
