Kevin De Bruyne and Perception-Action
One of the more important scientific theories regarding sports and sports training, is the one of perception-action coupling, and affordances. This is what Kevin De Bruyne (and every other human moving) proved with his game-capsizing goal at Saint James’ Park.
Perception-Action is a theory that believes perception (capturing stimuli from the environment) and action (response) are closely related. Affordance is the opportunity or possibility for actions that are perceived by (in this case) humans.
When a cat sees a box, they perceives the affordance of being able to go sit in that box. When you see a football, you perceive the affordance of being able to kick it. You won’t come to the same outcome if it’s a rock.
In sports, and especially team sports, and especially football, where there are so many players involved, with unlimited degrees of freedom (you’re free to go anywhere on the pitch), perception-action and correct judgment of affordances is crucial.
For the absolute peak of footballers that “run” the game, the speed at which one can perceive and act is the game changer.
When the defender between the ball and the goal opens the window by opening their legs, De Bruyne is faster to perceive and act upon this affordance.
From his interview with Play Sports;
“I see Schär trying to make himself as large as possible because it’s actually 1vs1. In my thoughts, his legs are widely open.”
Affordance is scaling the environment (shot location, goalkeeper, Schär, the ball’s speed, …) to yourself (the individual). The balance is weighed; can I afford this? Actions in football and all team sports are consequences of that perception.
When asked whether the ball goes through the legs intentionally or with luck;
“It is not coincidence, it’s done consciously.“
“It’s because of that, I hit it with my inside foot, I try to shoot it with precision. On power, it doesn’t work.“
The perception of Schär’s movement, how a strike with the inside foot will offset the goalkeeper’s movement, and the immediate action-response, scaled to his individual affordance (can I do this?), is what makes the Kevin De Bruyne’s of sports stand out.
Most other players, if they have the individual brilliance and afford they have it, and if they perceive that environment, still don’t act upon it because perception-action for Kevin occurs in split seconds.
This blog does not exist to micro-analyse a football goal, this is possible to do with any moving action on or off a football pitch, but rather to underline the existence of affordances, and why it is crucial to incorporate them in training footballers.
Training implications
Football training (except for a very limited portion of it) should be realistic to the game one trains for.
Lionel Messi does not dribble past the Getafe team in 2007 by imagining they were fluorescent yellow cones. Unopposed training, where the only (f)actors are cones, a ball and yourself, is where players can warm up or learn new skills (passing inside foot, overstep, …), but it is not where they learn to play in a game.
The game is made up of scaling affordances, which is only taught in realistic, opposed scenarios. A winger does not score top-bins in a Premier League game because they did it ten times versus a cone and a goalkeeper during the week, they do so when opposed to defenders, and scaling affordances to create the shot.
The essence of opposed sports is forever perceiving the intent of the opponent; with the best players doing this faster, and acting upon it faster, with more expansive individual qualities.
Football training, should therefore stimulate the scaling of affordance. Not only the individual constraints (which qualities do I possess) but also the environmental constraints (what does my environment afford).
This is possible by crafting the right situations through delivering competitive exercises (opposed), and implementing learning moments to teach what is important to perceive and let them discover what is possible.
