ArticlePloS one2021
Explaining the difference between men's and women's football.
Article in PloS one, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Fatigue and Recovery Time Course After Female Soccer Matches: A Systematic Review And Meta-analysis.Sports medicine - open · 2022Pooled it
- Evolution of spatial structure, passing network patterns, and gameplay intensity in elite women's and men's football (2020-2025).Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Scan frequency and timing in relation to performance in elite youth female football players during 11v11 match play.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2026Article
- Spatial characteristics of pitch-passing networks under four situational variables in the UEFA Women's euro 2025: a social network analysis.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2026Article
- Key performance indicators of offensive transitions in elite women's football: a machine learning and explainability approach.Biology of sport · 2026Article
- Article
- Effect of away goals rule and VAR on game-related statistics in the UEFA women's champions league.BMC sports science, medicine & rehabilitation · 2025Article
- Effect of team quality on offensive playing style and ball possessions development during the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup.Biology of sport · 2025Article
- Autonomic Nervous System Control in Male and Female Elite Soccer Players: Importance of Different Training Routines and Perceived Stress.Journal of cardiovascular development and disease · 2025Article
- Analysis of goal scoring patterns in the UEFA Women's EURO 2022.Biology of sport · 2025Article
- How did match running performance change after an extra time match during FIFA 2022 World Cup and 2023 Women`s World Cup?BMC sports science, medicine & rehabilitation · 2025Article
- Goal and shot prediction in ball possessions in FIFA Women's World Cup 2023: a machine learning approach.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Factors related to the success in women's football-a systematic review.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2025Review
- Article
- Analysing substitutions in recent World Cups and European Championships in male and female elite football - influence of new substitution rules.Biology of sport · 2024Article
- The Evolution of Physical Performance throughout an Entire Season in Female Football Players.Sports (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Predicting goal probabilities with improved xG models using event sequences in association football.PloS one · 2024Article
- A data-driven framing of player and team performance in U.S. Women's soccer.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2023Article
- Future horizons in the analysis of technical-tactical performance in women's football: a mixed methods approach to the analysis of in-depth interviews with professional coaches and players.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Women's football is gaining supporters and practitioners worldwide, raising questions about what the differences are with men's football. While the two sports are often compared based on the players' physical attributes, we analyze the spatio-temporal events during matches in the last World Cups to compare male and female teams based on their technical performance. We train an artificial intelligence model to recognize if a team is male or female based on variables that describe a match's playing intensity, accuracy, and performance quality. Our model accurately distinguishes between men's and women's football, revealing crucial technical differences, which we investigate through the extraction of explanations from the classifier's decisions. The differences between men's and women's football are rooted in play accuracy, the recovery time of ball possession, and the players' performance quality. Our methodology may help journalists and fans understand what makes women's football a distinct sport and coaches design tactics tailored to female teams.
Identifiers
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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.