Optimization of Harmony in Team Formation Problem for Sports Clubs: A Real-Life Volleyball Team Application
Gerçek Budak, İmdat Kara, Yusuf Tansel İç, Refail Kasimbeyli

Abstract
Sports team coaches� main concern is forming the best team to win the upcoming match. Even if a team squad is comprised of limited number of players, the combination of them makes out a complicated problem with huge number of possible line-ups and therefore the team coaches necessitate a scientific support on giving the team formation decisions. Academic researches on this subject increase in the last decade since this decision became important financially and solvable as the parameters are reachable. There are many aspects that define the best team such as team harmony, player performance, team strategy, opponent suitability etc. This research proposes a new mathematical model which aims to form the best team with respect to team harmony. The proposed mathematical model supplies a team that the total amount of the satisfactory level of the all assigned players is the highest. Harmony parameters are obtained from players by using questionnaires which consists of the questions of how much is the harmony level with other players and what the best team according to their desire is. A real-life application of the proposed model is displayed on volleyball team formation problem for a team which participates in the men�s first division of Turkey in the study as well.

Full Text: PDF