While watching numerous games over the Christmas period, I took it upon myself to view as many games as possible, with the view of trying to understand what respective teams were doing, during game play.
The game is unpredictable and at times there will be situations that happen by ‘pot luck’, but are all situations reliant on this?

Throughout the process of viewing games, it was important to understand the differences between looking and seeing;

Looking – viewing the game zoomed in, following the ball and anticipating players actions.
Seeing – zooming out and looking at the game from a larger lens (focus on the team).

Using the above points within the context of viewing games, there was a high importance of ‘seeing’ in the games that I observed.

Depending on the ground that is hosting the game and the coverage that is provided, it is at times tricky to identify patterns that happen during the game. But, without any other software available, I had to rely on the camera angle that is provided, with mainstream television.

There are a few things that I used to assist my objective of, attempting to identify team intentions. I first used the followings steps;

Watch the first 10 minutes and try to identify early patterns
Look at the team in 2 phases to start – usually in attack and transitioning to defend
When the opposition had the ball in their defensive third (building up), where was the defensive block in relation to this

After gaining some initial thoughts here and looking at the teams behaviours, I then delved slightly deeper into the next part of questioning;

Where are they building up from most and where are they attempting to gain success?
When they lost possession of the ball, how did the team react?
Who are the key players so far in the game?

While gaining information from the previous 6 questions, I could then start to compile some notes of my observations and provoke some further thoughts of my own.

If player ‘x’, ‘y’ and ‘z’ are key to the build up, why is this? Are they on the same vertical or horizontal line, which could enable higher levels of communication or are they superior than their opponents with individual qualities?
Is the team in question being proactive in their approach to the game? Does the communication from the team look organised – is it working? Or, are there parts of the team that are struggling for a variety of reasons and is the opposition targeting this as a consequence?

When looking at the team (zoomed out), it’s vital that we understand the logical structure of football;

The game – what it is
Team task – what team task to use in a certain scenario – creating goalscoring opportunities (example)
Team intentions – how will we execute the team task – creating goalscoring opportunities

By taking the game as a starting point, players will have to communicate which is the first step of a football action. Communication, decision making and execution of a decision make up the action and there will be more on this later. The first step, communication, can be explained as;

Player interactions (meaning at least 2 players communicating with each other, with opponents present), in order to execute a given intention, which will make the team more predictable.

The decision making of a player will always impact an outcome of a given scenario, but the hope is that their individual intention will contribute to the overall intention, and the objective of the game (to score at least 1 more goal than the opposition).

So, when zooming out and viewing from team level, it’s important to really try and see what the team are intending to do, opposed to looking at each players actions and observing the outcome.

Take the team first and focus on the players second.