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In the sport of soccer, vision and decision-making is what separate the exceptional players from the good players.
The players who are able to see the game two steps ahead and make decisions that help their team achieve a certain goal will see greater opportunities and have better performances compared to the players who would rather rely solely on their skills and dribbling.
If you're a player who is looking to play in the next level, you MUST have good awareness of the situation around you and be able to execute decisions according to what you see.
Players like Modric, Kevin De Bruyne, Messi, and Thiago demonstrate the concept of awareness exceptionally well. They're always picking up their head and analyzing the situation around them, and adjusting their position, their touch, and pass according to what they see.
So how can YOU improve your awareness and vision in soccer?
Here are a few tips to help you improve your awareness!
How to Improve Awareness
1. Add a Shoulder Check to Simple Drills
One excellent way to improve your awareness is by adding a shoulder check to most of your first touch + passing drills.
For example, you can set up a drill where you and a partner are practicing 1 touch passes, but before every pass you receive, you check your shoulder to see what's behind you.
It's good to get into the habit of checking your shoulder and being aware of the spaces around you. By incorporating a shoulder check to simple drills, you're practicing the key action that will allow you to be more aware in a game, which is picking up your head and analyzing the situation around you before you receive the ball, that way you know what to do when you get the ball.
I would recommend only starting to add the shoulder check once you have gotten really comfortable with the technique you are practicing. For example, if you struggle to be able to return a crisp one-touch pass to your partner, then first train the technique until you can comfortably it.
Then, once you're comfortable, start adding the shoulder check action to challenge your technique further and add the game realistic component.
2. Add Visual Cues
Another great way to improve your vision and awareness is to add visual cues to your training drills.
An easy way to do this is by setting up a tripod and a phone that displays colors that you have to check as you perform your drill.
By incorporating a visual component to your training, you are progressing from just performing a normal shoulder check since you are challenging your cognitive side as well as your neuromuscular component by having to react to the cue you see on screen.
In order to be able to play quicker in a real match, you need to a fast speed of thought, and be able to make split second decisions as soon as you take in the information you see from the situation around you.
By incorporating cognitive and visual awareness into your training over a consistent period of time, you are working on and improving your speed of thought and decision making when reacting to visual stimulus.
For a full Awareness technical training session that I did with visual cues, check out this YouTube video on the GoGrind Soccer Channel!
3. Add Auditory Cues
Another game realistic way to improve your awareness is to include audio cues into your training.
In real game, you might have to make a decision when receiving the ball from the audio cues your teammates yell at you when you're on the ball.
For example, as a midfielder, when you receive the ball from the CB, and the CB sees that you have no direct pressure on you, he might yell at you to "TURN" or if there is pressure on you, he might yell "MAN ON!"
Based on what the CB yells at you, your decision will be either to turn into space, or play the ball one touch somewhere safer to avoid losing possession to the pressure on you.
Similarly to training with visual cues, training with auditory cues will help train and develop your speed of thought when on the ball, which will translate to enhanced decision-making in a real match.
Here's an example of a drill where you can apply an audible component:
The set-up and instructions for this drill is as follows; set up a triangle shape with three different color cones. (In the image, the colored cones are green, blue, and orange.)
Directions:
1) The player will start between the blue and green cones as shown above, and their teammate will play a pass to their feet.
2) Before the player performing the drill receives the ball, their teammates will yell a color, and the player receiving the ball has to perform a turn and dribble towards the color of the cone they hear. (In the example, the teammate yells the color green, and the player performing the drill turns and dribbles towards the green marker.)
3) The player then has to dribble around the colored marker and then towards the head of the triangle (which is marked by the orange circle in the picture).
4) The player will dribble around the head of the triangle, and play a pass back into their teammate.
5) The player will reset and perform the drill for 2-3 Sets of 5-10 Repetitions.
4. Play More Games
One of the most important ways to improve decision making, awareness, and vision, is to expose yourself to situations that call for them.
You may be confused as to why you would go into a match to perform something you don't know how to do, but in reality, being exposed to more matches will give you more experience in your role to be aware of what to do in a certain scenario.
You can perform all the visual and auditory awareness drills in the world, but if you're not actually applying this training into a match-speed scenario, then you will never improve your awareness and decision making.
Go out and play as many games as you can, and look at each game as an opportunity to learn, and an opportunity to apply your awareness training and your improved speed of thought into the real thing.
The more games you get under your belt, and believe it or not, the more mistakes you make in your games, the more you will learn and grow as a player.
Many players are afraid of making mistakes in games, and that's perfectly fine. If you can, you'd like to avoid losing the ball or making the wrong choice. However, when the time comes when you do make that mistake, instead of beating yourself up about it, use it as an opportunity to learn.
Write down that mistake. What should you have done? What can you do next time to avoid making that same mistake? What training can you do to improve this?
Once you have applied this principle of growth mindset to your mistake, you will become smarter and more experienced in your position. You will avoid making those same mistakes and instead use the awareness and IQ you have built in order to make the right choice.
From personal experience, I have found out that beating myself up over stupid mistakes that cost my team a goal only makes the situation worse for my team, and for myself.
One time, I was playing for the U-23 team for my current club. I was 16 at the time, and I was incredibly nervous, because not only was I playing at a high level, but I was also playing in a position I wasn't used to. (I'm a midfielder and in this game I was in the fullback position.)
There came a time where the ball was cleared from the midfield and the ball bounced between me and my keeper.
I had a fast and strong striker coming on my back and I panicked, so even though my keeper was telling me to let him kick the ball out, I instead made the wrong choice of picking up the the ball up myself and tried to beat my attacker with pace by taking the ball our wide.
But I was then beat and out-muscled, which ended up costing us a goal.
After that game, I was substituted out, and I went home feeling extremely angry with myself, and I seriously questioned my ability.
However, what I should've done was to accept that mistakes happen, and that I need to forgive myself first, and then LEARN from this mistake that I made.
What could I have done better? I could've used my body to block the striker and let the keeper reach and clear the ball out.
I also could've had better communication with my keeper and told him to retrieve the ball, instead of giving into the pressure and trying to do it myself.
By reflecting and learning from that mistake, I can now avoid making a similar mistake in the future.
Summary
In order to improve your awareness and vision in soccer, you must be able to train your speed of thought and your reactive decision making.
You can develop this in your own individual training sessions by incorporating different aspects of awareness such as:
Adding shoulder checks to drills
Adding visual cues
Adding auditory cues
Playing in more matches and learning from mistakes.
The more you train your vision and awareness and the more experience you get from playing multiple matches, the more you will learn and develop as a player.
I hope you enjoyed this article, and I hope you can put everything I've written to practice.
Thanks for Reading! Get Up. Go Grind.
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