Reading the Next Pass: Perception, Anticipation, and Decision-Making for Soccer Players and Coaches

Reading the Next Pass

Perception, Anticipation, and Decision-Making for Soccer Players and Coaches Clara Bianchi

The ball reaches your feet. The defender is already moving. The best chance to make a good decision may have come two seconds earlier.

Reading the Next Pass explains how soccer players gather information, recognize pressure, anticipate opponents, and choose actions that fit the situation. It turns the often-vague idea of “soccer IQ” into specific behaviors that players and coaches can observe, discuss, and practice.

Across eight focused chapters, the book explores soccer decision making, soccer tactical awareness, and the small movements that create time and useful passing angles. Readers learn how to connect soccer scanning drills with the next touch, use soccer anticipation training without turning guesses into certainties, and build soccer game intelligence through game-like practice.

The guide also examines football perception skills from the player's point of view. It explains why a camera cannot reveal everything a player saw and offers a practical method for soccer video analysis that separates observation, player reports, and interpretation.

Inside you'll find: - Clear examples of receiving under pressure, escaping cover shadows, and reading pressing triggers. - Ways to evaluate the quality of a decision separately from the success of its execution. - Representative small-sided games that ask players to recognize real cues instead of memorizing a pattern. - Twelve field exercises with objectives, setups, progressions, and review questions. - Simple worksheets for video review, session planning, and tracking adaptation across matches. - Research notes that distinguish supported findings from practical coaching suggestions.

For players who want to understand the next action before the ball arrives, and for coaches who want practice to produce better choices under pressure, this book offers a concrete place to start.

Read the situation. Choose the action. Test it on the field.

© 2026 Touchline Press (E-bog): 6610001468835

Udgivelsesdato

E-bog: 16. oktober 2026