Athlete Monitoring in Norwegian Elite Women's Football: An Exploratory Study of Current Practices and Perceptions.

PURPOSE: The increasing professionalization of women's football has heightened the importance of appropriate load management. However, little is known about current athlete monitoring practices and stakeholder perceptions in women's football. Therefore, this study aimed to examine monitoring practices and perceptions among (1) players and (2) coaching and performance staff to identify key facilitators and barriers to effective load management. METHODS: All clubs from the Norwegian women's Premier League were invited to complete a role-specific online survey on data collection, data analysis, implementation, and evaluation of current monitoring practice. Eight clubs participated, eliciting data from 6 head coaches, 8 practitioners, and 113 players. RESULTS: Five clubs (62.5%) reported systematic monitoring; all 5 included subjective measures, and 4 collected external loads, while 1 club measured counter movement jump test. Perceived individualization of training load (7-point Likert scale) yielded median scores of 5 and 6 for monitoring players and staff, respectively, compared with 4 and 2 for nonmonitoring players and staff. The most frequently reported challenges were "players not responding" for data collection, "time constraints" for data analysis, and "lack of equipment" and "tactical considerations" for decision on load adjustment. CONCLUSION: In this cohort, athlete monitoring was widely accepted but implemented heterogeneously and constrained by available resources. The findings generate the hypothesis that monitoring may increase perceived individualization of training, with good communication and visible use of data as potential facilitators. Future research should test this hypothesis in confirmatory studies and clarify the practical value of objective readiness measures for training-load decisions.