PERSPECTIVE article
Front. Sports Act. Living
Sec. Elite Sports and Performance Enhancement
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fspor.2025.1628561
This article is part of the Research TopicStrength Training and Performance Optimization: The Triad of Physical, Psychological, and Physiological Excellence - Volume IIView all articles
Training Spatial Intelligence in Football Through the Cognitive Load Scale
Provisionally accepted
Rafael Pedrosa1*
Ricardo Tavares2- 1University College London, London, United Kingdom
- 2Portuguese Football Federation, Lisbon, Portugal
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Cognitive skills like working memory and spatial awareness play a central role in football, yet they are not commonly addressed in training. Here, we propose a practical approach to integrating cognitive demands into football practice without losing the ecological validity of the game. We introduce the Cognitive Load Scale (CLS), a five-level framework to classify and adapt drills based on their cognitive demands. Through task constraints involving space, color rules, attentional shifts, and memory load, coaches can challenge how players perceive, decide, and act under pressure. We present examples across CLS levels, showing how spatial intelligence can be trained systematically on the pitch. The goal is to design sessions where the game itself becomes the tool for cognitive development.
Keywords: spatial cognition, Football (soccer), Player development, cognitive scale, working memory, football practice policy, Drill & practice
Received: 14 May 2025; Accepted: 23 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Pedrosa and Tavares. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Rafael Pedrosa, University College London, London, United Kingdom
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