ABSTRACT
In relation to team sports, one can consider four notions that are central to the topic of this chapter: opposition to opponents, cooperation with teammates, attack on the opposing team's camp, and defense of one's own camp. Each of these four elements comes into play, however the complexity of each interaction may vary depending upon the category of sport involved (Almond, 1986b; Werner, 1989). For instance, in baseball, a fielding/run scoring type of team sport, attack and defense are two separate phases in a given inning while in invasion games, the four elements are at play simultaneously. The basic idea is for each player to cooperate with teammates to better oppose the opponents either while attacking (keeping one's defense in mind) or while defending (getting ready to attack) (Gréhaigne, Godbout, & Bouthier, 1997). Given that two teams play in opposition, a systemic view of team sports brings us to consider two main organizational levels: the match, related to the force ratio, and the team, related to the competency network.
