%0 Journal Article
%@ 2624-9367
%A Calleja-González, Julio
%A Mallo, Javier
%A Cos, Francesc
%A Sampaio, Jaime
%A Jones, Margaret T.
%A Marqués-Jiménez, Diego
%A Mielgo-Ayuso, Juan
%A Freitas, Tomás T.
%A Alcaraz, Pedro E.
%A Vilamitjana, Javier
%A Ibañez, Sergio J.
%A Cuzzolin, Francesco
%A Terrados, Nicolás
%A Bird, Stephen P.
%A Zubillaga, Asier
%A Huyghe, Thomas
%A Jukic, Igor
%A Lorenzo, Alberto
%A Loturco, Irineu
%A Delextrat, Anne
%A Schelling, Xavi
%A Gómez-Ruano, Miguel
%A López-laval, Isaac
%A Vazquez, Jairo
%A Conte, Daniele
%A Velarde-Sotres, Álvaro
%A Bores Cerezal, Antonio
%A Ferioli, Davide
%A García, Franc
%A Peirau, Xavier
%A Martin-Acero, Rafael
%A Lago-Peñas, Carlos
%D 2023
%F uneatlantico:5487
%J Frontiers in Sports and Active Living
%K team sport, performance, competition, recovery, training load
%T A commentary of factors related to player availability and its influence on performance in elite team sports
%U http://repositorio.uneatlantico.es/id/eprint/5487/
%V 4
%X Elite performance and sporting success are often the result of optimal integration and synergy of all components of sports preparedness (i.e., health, technical and tactical skills, bioenergetic and neuromuscular abilities and capacities, anthropometric characteristics, cognition, emotions, creativity, or personality), which evolve because of systematic long-term sports preparation. However, the relative importance of these characteristics varies between individual and team sports. While some individual sports require a high standard of bioenergetic and neuromuscular abilities and capacities, team sports performance is closely related to technical and tactical skills, which may compensate for weakness within the fitness level (1). Nonetheless, successful team sport performances seem to be much more dependent on the interaction among a wide range of factors than on the maximum development of one or two factors in isolation. In team sports, elite performance emerges from the interaction among the individual parts (2) to overcome the opponent during competition.  Sports may be categorized according to the degree of predictability of the environment that they are played in (3). Team sports occur in highly unpredictable environments due to the interactions with both teammates and opponents, with performance dealing with this unpredictability. Thus, it is important to have a clear understanding of the integrative systems and the principles that rule their interactions with the environment, keeping in mind the main aim of the process: developing the diversity/unpredictability potential of athletes/teams (4) to afford the emergence of rich patterns of behavior from players to adapt quickly and effectively in dynamically changing and unpredictable environments (5).  Performance in team sports is affected by several factors that affect the organization of training and competitions. These include, for example, COVID-19 cases (6), PCR tests (7), air flights and their effects prior to competition (8), injuries (9), or match-congested schedules (10). The interaction among these factors may also influence player availability. The concept of player availability is a common one in elite team sports. Available players can be considered the ones who are injury-free and ready to compete whether the head coach chooses to put them on the lineup. Thus, an available state would be when a player is fit and recovered enough to compete. On the other hand, player unavailability would be considered a state which includes injury, sanction or suspension, or other reasons that would keep a player out of match. However, this topic needs to be explored more in elite team sport environments. Considering previous enriching work, it remains important to further progress and provide academic knowledge in order to support coaches/managers, strength and conditioning coaches, sport scientists, and medical team members (e.g., doctors, physicians, and physiotherapists) in their working environments. While widely-advocated scientific groundwork is considered throughout this manuscript, the main aim of this opinion article is to provide a review of factors related to player availability and its influence on performance in elite team sports (Figure 1). Finally, some practical suggestions and recommendations are provided to deal with constant alterations in player's availability and performance fluctuations.