## 1 Introduction  
From a physical demand perspective, soccer is mainly an intermittent aerobic sport, where players alternate between multidirectional high-intensity efforts and numerous low-intensity rest periods [1; 2; 3]. It is increasingly important to monitor team sport athletes to understand individual responses to load [4]. Global Positioning System (GPS) devices offer the possibility to objectively measure a wide range of variables, allowing us to understand the conditioning demands of players according to their playing position during training sessions or competitions [1; 5; 6; 7]. In the updated model of injury etiology, training and match loads contribute alongside intrinsic and extrinsic factors to the multifactorial model of injury etiology [8]. It has been shown that training load is a modifiable risk factor for overuse injuries [9]. This information becomes even more relevant knowing that overuse injuries, which predominate in soccer, are often a mistake in the perception and programming of the external training load [10]. In a recent study, [PERSON] et al. demonstrated the impact of weekly training external load and matches as a risk factor in overuse muscle injuries. Current data suggest that a combination of a heavy external training load week and a short period of high-intensity running during a match might be related to an increased risk of muscle injuries in professional soccer players [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11]. Like the role of training load, playing position might also substantially influence soccer player's injury rate [12]. While activity profiles have been widely researched, a common methodological limitation is the exclusive use of absolute values; recent findings suggest that each player's demands should be considered individually [13]. Indeed, player activity is usually classified into different intensity or speed zones, but there are no standardized zones. The lack of a universal definition leads to confusion about speed level thresholds, which can lead to erroneous conclusions based on a fixed threshold [14, 15]. Using a fixed threshold determines absolute speed ranges, i.e., arbitrary speed zones independent of the physical conditioning levels of the players, such as the distance covered at high intensity (>19.8 km/h) or sprinting (>25.2 km/h) [7, 16, 17, 18]. Absolute ranges seem to be commonly adopted in soccer; however, the interpretation of arbitrary speed zones has the disadvantage of masking individual capabilities [5, 19, 20]. Meanwhile, an individualized threshold based on the player's maximum speed (Vmax) allows for accounting for these individual capabilities [5, 14]. To define intensity zones, the most used thresholds are moderate (between 40 and 60% of Vmax), high (60-75% of Vmax), and very high or sprint (>75% of Vmax) [13, 21, 22]. Analyzing specific demands, several studies have pointed out that indicators based solely on the speed profile do not reveal the full picture of the load, because efforts with high accelerations require more energy and a higher muscle demand than speed efforts [23]. Incorporating accelerometry through GPS calculation factors into the workload has highlighted a 6 to 8% difference in load estimation, compared to monitoring techniques derived solely from speed calculated by positioning systems (e.g., GPS) [16, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27]. Furthermore, players rarely have the time and space to reach maximum speeds, relying instead on their ability to accelerate rapidly [19, 28, 29]. Similar to speed profiles, acceleration profiles can be quantified in absolute or relative terms to determine action intensity. Common thresholds in the literature for low, moderate, and high-intensity actions are less than 2 m/s\({}^{-2}\), 2-3 m/s\({}^{-2}\), and greater than 3 m/s\({}^{-2}\) for absolute thresholds, and less than 50%, 50-75%, and more than 75% of maximal acceleration for relative thresholds [16, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34]. Therefore, the relative method may offer a better estimation of acceleration levels and physical load [35].