Affordances shape pass kick behavior in association football: effects of distance and social context

A prerequisite for accurate passing in association football is that a player perceives the affordances, that is, the opportunities for action, of a given situation. The present study examined how affordances shape passing in association football by comparing the performance of pass-kicks in two task conditions. Participants performed pass-kicks into either a stationary goal or to a teammate over a range of distances. The following passing action variables were measured: passing accuracy, pass preparation time, pass-kick technique, passing height, and passing velocity. Participants mainly used inside-foot pass-kicks with little to no height over the entire range of distances when the task was to perform pass-kicks into a stationary goal. However, when the task was to kick to a teammate, participants used inside-foot pass-kicks with little to no height for short distance passes and switched to relatively more instep-foot pass-kicks with more height for longer distances. Overall, pass preparation time increased with increasing distance, while participants took less time to prepare for pass-kicks to a moving teammate. The paper outlines these results in terms of the perception of (social) affordances for passing in football.