GPS technologies and sport performance in football: A bibliometric and thematic analysis

This study aimed to map the scientific literature on Global Positioning System (GPS) and Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) technologies in relation to sport performance in association football through bibliometric and thematic analyses. Bibliographic data were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection on 21 March 2026. After applying document-type, language, and index filters and excluding studies related to non-association football codes, 670 publications were included in the final analysis. Bibliometric and thematic analyses were conducted in R using the bibliometrix package. Annual scientific production, the most productive sources, authors, and countries, the most globally cited documents, keyword co-occurrence patterns, and thematic structure were examined. Scientific production increased markedly over time, particularly after 2018, with the highest annual output observed in 2025. The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research was the most productive source, Clemente FM was the most productive author, and Spain was the leading contributing country. The most highly cited publications were predominantly focused on player monitoring, training load, external load, and match-running performance. Keyword co-occurrence analysis identified four major conceptual clusters related to physical performance and recovery, training load and match demands, GPS measurement properties, and player-specific match performance. Thematic mapping showed that football, performance, and external load constituted a central and well-developed theme, whereas GPS-related concepts represented basic themes. These findings provide a consolidated overview of the field and indicate that GPS/GNSS-based football performance research is primarily organized around external-load monitoring, physical performance assessment, measurement properties, and player-specific workload demands.