Current understanding of critical game scenarios in team sports: systematic review

In sports, game scenarios can be critical or non-critical, potentially presenting very distinct implications for the game flow. However, defining a critical scenario is not an easy task. Although there is some research on game scenarios, game situations, game moments, and critical moments, through this systematic review we intend to fill a gap in the knowledge of critical scenarios in order to structure the existing knowledge and pinpoint current limitations. the search was conducted in July of 2020 in Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, SciELO, and, through a manual search, in Google Scholar. the eligibility criteria included original research with quantitative and/or qualitative analysis of critical game scenarios or game moments. the participants were humans of any gender, age group, health status, competitive level, or expertise. Risk of bias assessment involved 14 criteria in the evaluation of the studies. the study synthesis methods followed a qualitative synthesis of the main results of each study in the final sample. Of the 279 researched articles, only 4 met the inclusion criteria, i.e. only 4 provided data concerning critical game scenarios. their contributions are discussed in detail, as is the open research windows for the future. Overall, there is clearly a need for more research specifically addressing this topic, with a huge gap between theoretical relevance and actual investigation.