Team timeouts in the spotlight

A research study into the psychological theory of timeouts has been strengthened further with data from four major events – including this year’s Men’s EHF EURO 2020.

A quantitative analyses of Team Time Outs in Handball - published by Heinz Hausmann, an EHF Master Coach and certified mental coach, and his son David, a handball coach and certified mental coach - was published two years ago.

Its purpose was to determine whether there are any differences in behaviour, timing and possible reasoning between team timeouts taken by the eventual winning teams' coaches and the eventual losing teams' coaches.

The study originally took data from a pool of 750 matches but in the two years since the research was published, the Hausmanns have now added matches from both the Women’s EHF EURO 2018 and Men’s EHF EURO 2020, as well as from the men’s and women’s 2019 World Championships.

The additional data once again highlighted that winning teams’ coaches on average still take a timeout when the previously established lead has not increased but has slightly shrunk within five minutes before the timeout was taken.

Click here for the full study from 2018 and click here to read the updated 2020 version which includes further analysis and conclusions.