Perception and Scoring Goals: How Strikers Use Scanning

In the last years, the number of scientific works about players and football has undoubtedly increased, and with it the knowledge about football. One of the most famous terms in this period is "scanning".

Scanning is the process of exploring the environment, giving you a clear picture in your mind before taking a better decision and executing the action,

In these days which the tactics developed to make the game more intense, forcing the opponent’s player to take a decision in less time on the ball, so the player needs to scan to survive.

When we hear “scanning” the first thing comes in your mind is a dropping player wants to receive the ball, so he needs to know what will he do in his next action, but in this piece, I will go deeper in a slightly different thing about strikers.

Perception process is very important, when the striker goes at the opponent goal in 1 v 1 with GK, let’s see how., In the Community Shield game between Liverpool & Manchester City, the Uruguayan striker Darwin Nunez made his first moments with his new club, and with his first 5 minuties he missed 1v1 chance against Ederson, which made me watch his reactions before kicking the ball towards Ederson’s face.

Let’s recap what happened, a long ball towards Citizen’s back line, Nunez tracks the ball forces Ake to push the ball slightly towards Henderson, Henderson with one touch played the ball to Nunez who runs in behind Citizen’s defensive line, and when the ball comes to him, he takes a look on Ederson’s positioning, then he turns all his attention to the ball, the first frame shows that

the ball was going forwards towards the goal and he didn’t raise his gaze to see how the situation had updated, then….

He took the action without updating the new information about his surroundings, which led him to miss a valuable chance.

And when we go to the other side, we will see a similar situation in London Derby between Arsenal & Chelsea in the pre-season.
An intercepted pass from Chalobah, Xhaka with a one touch pass behind him to the Brazilian striker, and the important thing comes, he raised his eye up to collect his needed information “Where was Mendy ?”

then he adjusted his body and he still looking on Mendy.

These two simple glimpses led him to take a better decision, so he decided to chip the ball above the Senegal goalie to be 1-0.

And when we landed on Anfield Road, we found the same situation for the Swedish striker “Isak” who made his first debut by scoring his first goal against reds in their citadel.

A pass to Isak who made a run in behind Liverpool’s back line, his eyes towards the ball

and in his way towards the goal, he checked Alison’s positioning,..

Then he decided to hit the ball in the upper part of the goal to take the lead for his new club.

And with these situations, we could know how are simple things doing a huge impact in the outcome that comes after it.