Acute and transient match-related fatigue in university female footballers.

This study aimed to examine the acute fatigue response experienced by female footballers during and after match-play. Twenty university footballers completed three trials of a countermovement jump on a force platform pre- and post-match-play (35 observations). External loads were recorded during match play via global positioning systems (GPS) and heart rate (HR), respectively. Match-play loads were split into thirds and analysed via linear mixed model. Pre- and post- jump metrics (n=16) were analysed using a paired samples t-test. Significant decrements were observed between the first and final third for all metrics apart from accelerations (p > 0.05). Relative concentric peak force (p = 0.035) was significantly increased post-match. Whilst a reduction was observed for relative concentric mean power (p = 0.034). The remaining 14 metrics did not display any significant changes (p > 0.05). The stability of CMJ performance pre- to post-match alongside the reductions within match support the notion of transient fatigue. Moreover, coaches can use this data (i.e. transient fatigue) to inform tactics in university female football (e.g. substitutions) and conditioning regimes.