ABS: Always Be Scanning

Our focus this week is on A.B.S, Always Be Scanning. This falls under the perception skill category for the club. 

What do I mean by scanning? You’ll hear many coaches talk about scanning, but what exactly do we mean.

Perception involves the eyes, what we see on the field, and over the years apply quick pattern recognition based on many hours of play and an intuitive sense of what will happen next. 

But let’s back up a bit. We start with the physical things a player sees while he looks over the field: ball, boundary lines, teammates, opposition, and goals.

Players then recognize space, whether they need to close it down when out of possession or need to move into it when in possession. How to create and close down this space requires coordination between teammates and hopefully, a game model/philosophy.

Anticipation begins then, knowing where to be and when on the field to intercept the ball, receive a pass into space, pull opposing defenders towards us to create space for a teammate, making the perfect trap and shooting the ball into the net, and much more. 

Once we start to understand how we want to play on the field (for Fortress, it’s a positional game), we can anticipate ball movement as a team. We’ve gone from individual play, to play with a few teammates, to understanding a holistic approach to the game. 

We tell our wingers to stay high and wide while in possession of the ball. They may question, “Why am I this far away from the ball when I could be closer and have a greater chance of receiving it?”

That’s a good question. And for a player who is concentrating on where the ball is on the pitch, a logical one. However, if he looks around to see not just where the ball is but the amount of space he creates for his teammate by being high and wide, he can understand he is a part of that play even though he’s not close to the ball. 

The player that develops and maintains a sharp focus throughout the game, even in these outlying situations, implementing actions and learning from playing experiences will grow into a special player. 

There’s the view from up high. What about developing perception for our Fortress team? We ask the boys, just like the player in the paragraph above, to be disciplined throughout practice. To learn from what they’ve succeeded at and what they haven’t.  

This next part will be introduced and reinforced to the boys over the years to aid them to stay concentrated throughout the game and understand they are still a part of it even when it doesn’t seem like it and the boys just follow where the ball is instead of scanning the field. 

There are three “dynamic spaces” to look at depending on where the ball is: Game Center Space (the larger circle), Direct Cooperation Space (smaller square), and Indirect Cooperation Space (larger square).

Picture from “Alchemy Coaching” by Grant Knight and Paddy King.

The player with the ball has scanned the field before he receives the ball. Once received, he anticipates where the defense will move and dribbles or passes to an open man. 

In the example above, the center back (#5 on the circle team) has the ball. He has three options within the Game Center Space, to #3 (left back) and #6 (pivota) on each side of him or he could look for the split to number 10 (left-sided attacking midfielder). 

He knows there’s a certain rhythm his team has been playing with and this will dictate what he does with the ball, whether he’d like to draw the defense out, circulate the ball, switch the field, or play through the opposition’s forward line and attack the midfield and defensive lines. 

There’s more on dynamic spaces to come. For now, think of rondos as dealing with the Game Center Space, positional play games as the both the Game Center Space and the Direct Cooperation Space, and full matches as all three.

Being aware of these spaces will help the boys understand the influence they have off the ball as much as on the ball, shown above by the defensive cover and passing option created by #4 (other center back) and the width created by #2 (right back), #7 (right winger) and #11 (left winger). 

Scanning is vital in understanding where to move to create space for yourself and teammates while in possession and how to limit space for the opposing team when they have the ball. It also allows players to quickly recognize how opponents shift when out of possession, which is the key to positional play.