The art of scanning in football

“Earlier in the season, Frank Lampard spent some time with Rodri at Manchester City, breaking down the Ballon d’Or winner’s game as part of a ‘midfield masterclass’ that he was filming. ‘I did about a 50-second run of him against Aston Villa where he was scanning through the pitch,’ former Chelsea and England midfielder Lampard tells The Athletic. ‘He kind of went deep, got the ball, checked his shoulder five times, did it again and ended up putting (Ilkay) Gundogan through on goal. So he’s a scanner.’ Lampard was a scanner too. When Geir Jordet, a professor at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, carried out a study a decade or so ago, after getting his hands on a pile of Premier League ‘Player Cam’ DVDs, he discovered that Lampard scanned more frequently than any of the other 117 footballers he watched. …”
NY Times/The Athletic (Video)