ArticleBMJ open sport & exercise medicine2018
Top 50 most-cited articles in medicine and science in football.
Article in BMJ open sport & exercise medicine, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 7 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Olympic Sports Science-Bibliometric Analysis of All Summer and Winter Olympic Sports Research.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2021Pooled it
- Physical Education's Role in Enhancing Fitness Among Children and Adolescents: A Bibliometric Analysis.Journal of multidisciplinary healthcare · 2026Review
- Review
- Global scholarly output on orthodontic temporary anchorage devices (TADs): A silver jublee scientometric analysis.Journal of orofacial orthopedics = Fortschritte der Kieferorthopadie : Organ/official journal Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Kieferorthopadie · 2024Article
- Research on aerobic fitness in children and adolescents: a bibliometric analysis based on the 100 most-cited articles.Frontiers in medicine · 2024Article
- The 100 Most-Cited and Influential Articles in Collegiate Athletics.Orthopaedic journal of sports medicine · 2022Article
- The Most Highly Cited Publications on Basketball Originate From English-Speaking Countries, Are Published After 2000, Are Focused on Medicine-Related Topics, and Are Level III Evidence.Arthroscopy, sports medicine, and rehabilitation · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issuedCorrection:2018
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesTo conduct a comprehensive mapping analysis to the scientific literature published in football aiming to identify the areas of bigger interest and potential for further exploration.
methodsThe data were obtained by a search conducted on the Web of Science. Articles were listed based on citation frequency. We used an open-source bibliometrix R-package for the comprehensive bibliometric analyses.
resultsThe number of citations per article ranged from 251 to 869 (median 323; IQR 125). The yearly number of citations ranged from 8 to 54 (median 26; IQR 11). Most of the articles (76%) were of level III of evidence, 10% were level II and 14% were level IV. Within the top 50 most-cited articles, 40 articles were original research (37 observational and 3 experimental studies), 9 were review articles and 1 was a thesis. From the 40 original research articles, 50% involved elite players, 73% were exclusive to male players and 80% involved adult players only. The topic area with the highest number of articles was sports medicine (44%), followed by training and testing (32%), performance analysis (14%) and physiology (10%). No study within the top 50 was devoted to biomechanics, nutrition, sport psychology, coaching or social sciences.
conclusionsThe lack of experimental studies within the top 50 most-cited articles in football clearly underpins how far we still are from establishing the theoretical and methodological guidelines for the applied science and medicine in football.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.