Football Scanning Test: How Well Do You See the Pitch?

How does the scanning test work?

The test shows you a tactics board with you (the lime player), your teammates in white and their players in red, for a short time. Then every player except you disappears and you answer one question about the picture. It copies what happens in a match: you look away from the ball for a moment, and you have to remember what you saw.

1. Pick how long you get to look. Easy is 3 seconds, Normal is 2 seconds, Hard is 1.2 seconds.
2. Read your role. Each round starts with one line, for example “Your center back is passing to you.”
3. Look. The players appear and a bar counts down.
4. Answer. The players vanish. Tap an answer, or tap a zone on the board.
5. Check. The players come back so you can see what you missed, with one line on why it matters.

You play 10 rounds, picked at random from 12 situations, so two runs are rarely the same. The questions are the ones a coach shouts from the sideline: where’s the free man, is someone on your back, which side is open, how much time do you have.

What is scanning in football?

Scanning means quick turns of the head, away from the ball, to see where opponents, teammates and space are before the ball reaches you. You take a picture, look back at the ball, and your first touch already knows where it is going. In soccer (the US name for the same game) coaches call it “checking your shoulder” or “having a look”.

Scanning has two parts. The first is taking the look at the right moment, usually just before the pass to you is played and while it travels. The second is keeping what you saw. This test only trains the second part: how much one look gives you. For the first part, and for drills you can do alone with a ball and a wall, read our guide on how to scan in soccer.

What should you look for when you scan?

Every scan should answer four questions, in this order: who is near me, where is the space, where are my teammates, and what is changing. You can’t take in the whole pitch in a fraction of a second, so a scan with a question in your head gives you far more than a look with no plan.

What does your score mean?

Your score shows how much of the picture you kept after one look. 8 or more out of 10 means you took in the free player, the pressure and the space. A low score usually means you only saw the ball and the nearest player. Your average answer time matters too: a slow answer means you had to rebuild the picture.

Look at the breakdown under your score as well. If you got every “pressure on you” question but missed the free player, your looks are short and close. If you missed the counting questions, you’re seeing one player, not the picture. Try Hard mode once you score 8 or more on Normal.

How often do professional players scan?

Professional players scan often, and the best ones scan more than everyone else. In a study of 27 players at one Premier League club, covering 9,574 possessions in 21 matches, central midfielders and central defenders scanned most and forwards least, and players scanned less under tight pressure. The more a player scanned, the higher the chance he completed his pass.

• Scanning goes with better passing. In that study, players who scanned more before receiving were more likely to complete their next pass. They also scanned less in wide areas and near the opponent’s goal (Jordet et al., 2020).
• Pros scan more than amateurs. Using Premier League player-cam footage, Geir Jordet’s team compared 118 Premier League players with Dutch amateur players. The professionals scanned significantly more, and Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard were the top two (Sky Sports).
• A scan is a snapshot, not a stare. An eye-tracking study of four elite midfielders in real 11 v 11 matches found that only 2.3% of their scans included a fixation, where the eyes stop on one spot. They also had more opponents than teammates in view while scanning (Aksum et al., 2021, PLOS ONE). In a presentation for the FIFA Training Centre, Aksum puts the average scan at about 0.4 seconds.

That’s why this test gives you 3 seconds or less. In a match you never get a long look. You glance, and your brain has to keep enough from that glance to choose your first touch.

How does scanning change by position?

Every position scans, but each one looks for different things and at different moments. Use this table to know what your scans should answer, then read the guide for your position.

What makes a good scan: how often, when, or what you see?

All three matter, but they measure different things. How often you scan (scan rate) is the easiest to count. When you scan (timing) decides whether the picture is still true when the ball arrives. What you keep from each scan (quality) decides whether the look actually changes your touch. This test measures the third one.

A player who scans 10 times but never at the right moment still receives blind. A player who looks at the right moment but keeps nothing still guesses. Train the rate and timing on the pitch, and use this test to check that each look actually gives you the picture.

How do you get a better score?

Look with a question in your head. Players who score well don’t try to remember every dot. They check three things in order: is someone on me, where is the free teammate, and which side has space. That’s also the order that decides your first touch in a game.

• Check yourself first. Find the nearest red player to you and how far away he is.
• Then find the free man. Look for a white player with no red player close to him.
• Then the side. Notice which half of the board has fewer red players.
• Say it in words. “Man on, free on the right.” Words are easier to keep than a picture.
• Train it with the ball. Use the wall-pass and shoulder-check drills in our scanning guide, so the look becomes a habit before every pass.

Seeing the picture is only useful if you then pick the right option. That’s what our free soccer IQ test checks: 8 situations for your position, 15 seconds each, and the pro pick explained after every answer. For more on training decisions, see football decision-making training.

How else can you test your scanning?

Scanning is tested in six main ways: counting head turns on match video, eye-tracking glasses, passing tests where targets are behind you, VR headset drills, phone or browser apps that time your looks, and screen recall tests like this one. Each method checks a different part of scanning, so treat any single score as one piece of the picture.

The passing test is the newest research method. In a 2025 study, 54 players from the first and reserve teams of two professional clubs in Ghana did three passing tests. Scores dropped as more targets moved behind them: about 30 passes per minute at 120 degrees, 27 at 180 degrees and 26 at 360 degrees. First-team players scored higher than reserves, and better scores went with better results in 3 v 1 rondos (Hunter et al., 2025, Biomechanics).

Can you do a scanning test on the pitch?

Yes. With a wall, a ball and one friend you can run a 2-minute scanning check: your friend shows fingers behind you while the ball comes back off the wall, and you call the number before your first touch. Count how many you get right out of 20 and repeat the same setup every week.

1. Set up. Stand 6 metres from a wall. Your friend stands about 4 metres behind you.
2. Pass. Play the ball against the wall. As soon as it leaves your foot, your friend moves to your left or right and holds up 1 to 5 fingers.
3. Look and call. Check your shoulder and shout the number before your first touch. A call after your touch counts as a miss.
4. Score it. 20 passes, one point per correct call. Write the score down with the date.
5. Make it harder. Return the ball first time, so you have to look earlier. Or your friend steps in on an even number and you turn away from him.

How often should you take a scanning test?

Take a baseline now, train for two to four weeks, then retest under the same conditions. Testing every day mostly measures how well you remember the test. Once a week, on the same difficulty and at a similar time, shows whether your scanning is actually improving.

Look at the breakdown, not only the total. If the same question type keeps costing you points, that’s the thing to train next week. For a full weekly schedule around your team sessions, use our soccer training plan.

How is scanning linked to soccer IQ and decision making?

Scanning is the input and decision making is the output. Soccer IQ is both together: you see the picture before the ball arrives, then you pick the best option from it. A player can scan well and still choose badly, or choose well from a picture he never actually saw. You need both.

• See it: this scanning test checks how much one look gives you.
• Decide it: our soccer IQ test gives you 8 match situations for your position, and shows the pro pick and why.
• Train both: our guides on soccer IQ training and football decision-making training turn them into a weekly routine, and analysing a match as a player shows you how to watch games for this.

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