05/12/2023
The game of football is about decision-making and the skills needed to make the best decisions in complex and ever-changing situations. But the game of football is also getting faster and more physical. The games are more tactical with teams being better organized, and players getting less time and space to execute these decisions.
How does this development translate to talent identification, player development, training and coaching? Interesting topics for us as coaches but let’s focus on developing better decision-makers.
To develop players that make better decisions, we must first understand how players make decisions. Decisions find their origin in the brain. The brain acquires and collects information and processes this through a communication between the prefrontal cortex (working memory) and the hippocampus (long term memory) and a web of other connections. It then understands the relevance of the information, weighs the options and then makes a decision. Without making this a science lesson, let’s focus on football decisions again.
In football situations, players anticipate, perceive and analyse. This is a parallel process and
takes place in milliseconds. The next steps are deciding and executing (of the football action).
The better the first 4 steps of the decision-making process, the better the ex*****on (or choice) To understand this circle of decision-making is to understand how to improve and develop this process. So how can we create an environment of training and coaching where the ex*****on of good (and better) decisions takes place.
Most decisions are made without the ball, in interacting with the environment (teammates, opponents, ball, space). But when we focus on the player with ball:
Can players execute without the proper technical abilities?
Technique is still the basis for football. Yes, it is impossible to separate technique and decisions making but for me, technical superiority makes for tactical flexibility. Players should feel comfortable on the ball in any football situation. Their focus should be on anticipating, perceiving, analysing and not on the struggling technical abilities.
Let’s focus on the circle of decision-making and describe the different phases.
During a match (or football situations in training) players are always switched on (or at least, they should be). Anticipating means that they are looking into the future, expecting things to happen, sometimes even predicting what may happen. Perceiving in the football context means seeing and understanding what happens around us on the pitch (95% of what we perceive is visual, the rest by hearing, feeling) followed by analysing, or giving meaning to what we perceive. A lot of what we analyse is through pattern recognition. The past phase before the ex*****on is the decision. The moment we decide or commit to execute followed by the ex*****on of the football action itself (or interaction with the football environment).
While executing players are already anticipating, perceiving and analysing again. If in this process (right away or over longer periods of time) players learn from these decisions (good or bad), they are developing and learn to make better decisions.
How can we help players make better decisions. Next to this cognitive process of decision-making and the technical aspect there are a few other aspects we can utilize to develop players in making better decisions. One of the aspects is “positioning”.
Positioning we can separate into field positioning (tactical aspect: where do I position myself) and body positioning (how do I position myself).
The tactical aspect is meant to contribute but depending on many things such as the game plan, quality of the player (and his teammates), quality and game plan of the opponents, score of the game, etc. Video analyses and (team) training are the most suitable means to develop this. Video analyses and (team) training are the most suitable means to develop this. Body positioning is more individual but should allow the player the perceive with quality: how should I position my body so I can see more and therefore perceive more. Good body positioning also allows for better communication (verbal and non-verbal) and for scanning the pitch. Scanning should contribute to the circle of decision making. It’s not about looking but about seeing (seeing spaces, options, threats)
Training should be designed to facilitate decision making within a game context. Players should be challenged to make quick decisions in complex situations. We, as coaches should teach the players to reflect on these decisions. In the end, we want players that are able to make better quality decisions that contribute to their own development, their contribution to the game plan and the game result.
Roger Bongaerts 5-12-2023
