The master's thesis was written in order to study changes in the direction of movement that occur at different stages of the handball game in the performance of various structural elements. We focused on the method of performance, the number of occurrences and possible differences between the playing positions and the two halves of the match. The sample of matches was the Champions League final for men in season 2021/2022, which consisted of two semifinal matches, matches for the first and for the third place. The final tournament included teams THW Kiel, Telekom Veszprém HC, Lomza Vive Kielce and Barça. Data on changes in the direction of movement were obtained by accurate and repeated viewing of match recordings. The research included 52 different changes in the direction of movement, which were perceived when viewing the recordings. Each player was analysed individually. We recorded his playing position in the attack and defence, whether he changed the direction of movement without the ball or with the ball, the sub-stages of the match in which the change of direction was performed (attack, counterattack, set defence, return to defence) and in relation to the half-time. 5 null hypotheses were determined, which were statistically analysed using the IBM SPSS 25 software package (SPSS Inc., Armonk, NY, USA). For all variables we checked the normality test of data distribution. Since the test showed that the data were not normally distributed, we used non-parametric tests. The obtained results showed that there are statistically significant differences between the occurrence of changes in the direction of movement between the attack and defence (more changes occur in the defence), between the first and second half (more changes in the direction of movement occur in the first half), between the playing positions in the attack phase (back-court players make more changes than wing players), between the changes in direction that were performed in the attack phase with or without the ball (more changes are performed without the ball) and between the different types of changes in the direction of movement (the largest share is the angular change). Statistically significant differences do not occur in playing positions in defence.
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