Valid comments so far, but maybe your lens and camera do not match up well. A start for understanding:
https://luminous-landscape.com/are-your-pictures-out-of-focus/

"Causes of the problem

The main causes of the problem are camera and lens design, combined with manufacturing tolerances of mass produced devices.

Let’s face it, the vast majority of cameras and lenses are mass produced. If the manufacturing tolerances were incredibly tight, and each piece was tweaked and adjusted to perfection, prices would have to rise and quantities would shrink. Many people could not afford these very expensive cameras, and even those who could might have to wait for a long time to get their hands on one because of the limited supply. This would not be a particularly appealing situation.

Instead, things are massed produced to be “within tolerances”, but being within tolerances means that each piece is within a certain range of error that is considered to be “acceptable” by the manufacturer. Also, as most of us have experienced, periodically a piece that is out of spec seems to slip through all quality control and is sold to a customer.

The point I am trying to make is that the sensor will not be exactly where it is supposed to be, the mirror in an SLR will not come to rest in the perfect position, the autofocus system may be mounted just a wee bit off from the perfect position, it may be slightly out of perfect calibration, the focusing screen may be a little thinner or thicker than the spec, it may be placed slightly off in the camera, the lens mount may be slightly deeper or shallower than the spec, etc.

So, the consequence of mass production in large quantities at reasonable prices is that all these small deviations will pile up on top of each other and can cause the AF system in your camera to be out of focus. There is also a statistically significant probability that even if the autofocus system is working superbly, manual focus on the screen does not match the autofocus system on the camera."

You can make back/front focus corrections on your camera.

Because the second photo is a composite, the exif data are gone - to see the exif data the photos need to be uploaded separately with exif intact.

Looking at the exif data, I believe that the problem is depth of field. Your f/stop is only f/4.5, that should probably be set at f/8 or f11.
Your exposure time is 1/160 - too slow to stop action.
Your ISO is already bumped to 1600, but you didn't use a flash.
Given those numbers, you may have to use a flash and hope you can get close enough to the players to have the flash do any good - after you've received permission to use a flash there.

You say you've bought books, cheat-sheets, etc. May I suggest one more, if you have not already got that book and read it: Bryan Peterson's Understanding Exposure.