Objectives: Dynamic visualizations have become valuable assets in acquiring and improving sports skills. However, their instructional efficiency depends on their design and on learners’ cognitive abilities. Intending to improve learning sessions using these technologies, this study investigates the effects of visual realism and visuospatial abilities (VSA) on the memorization of soccer scenes. Methods: Twenty-four soccer beginners first performed a multitask VSA test followed by the memorization and reproduction of three dynamic sequences with different levels of realism. An eye-tracking system was used in the memorization phase to record gaze behavior and identify the involved cognitive processes. Results: Findings revealed that increasing visual realism disrupted learners’ memorization performance and visual processing. Moreover, learners with high-VSA were more efficient in memorizing soccer scenes than those with low-VSA and benefited more from reduced visual realism than low-VSA. Learners’ visual processing revealed that high-VSA were more focused on creating a mental representation of the content whereas low-VSA were rather visually guided when memorizing the scene. Conclusions: Results imply considering learners’ VSA and adapting presentations’ visual realism to optimize tactical learning among beginners.

Tracing gestures are hand movements designed to mimic or simulate specific actions. This study examined the effects of incorporating these gestures with mental imagery (dynamic imagery) versus using mental imagery alone (static imagery) on learning tactical movements in basketball. In addition, it investigated how the effectiveness of these techniques varies with players’ levels of expertise (expert vs. novice) and the timing of testing (immediate vs. delayed). The findings indicated that novices practicing dynamic mental imagery consistently outperformed those using only static imagery in both immediate and delayed tests. In contrast, although experts showed comparable benefits from both techniques in the immediate test, dynamic imagery proved significantly more beneficial in the delayed test. These results emphasize the important role that the combination of mental imagery and tracing gestures plays in enhancing learning performance, with the effects varying based on testing time and expertise level.

The stability of tactical learning in youth football remains insfficiently explored. This study examined players' explicit recognition of taught tactical content and the short-term stability of these judgements using a metacognitive double-pass (DP) method. A total of 225 youth footballers (U-13, U-15, U-18; n = 75 per group) completed both a single-pass (SP) and a delayed double-pass DP assessment across 40 standardized animated tactical scenarios. Results revealed a clear decline from SP to DP, suggesting overestimation in immediate (SP) judgements. Although stability improved with age, it did not approach high declarative integration, even in U-18s. These findings support the use of DP method as a conservative indicator of declarative accessibility and underline the importance of instruction that fosters guided verbalisation, reflective practice, and metacognitive monitoring. The double-pass approch thus appears to be a valuable tool for refining formative assessment in sport contexts.

The evaluation of offensive performance among football forwards increasingly relies on multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) models. However, the offensive criteria used in these models, understood as decision-making dimensions distinct from the indicators through which they are operationalised, remain rarely explicit, structured, and systematically validated in the literature. This study aimed to construct and validate a framework of offensive criteria intended to support transparent and comparable MCDM applications by examining its content validity among expert coaches. The methodological design involved three complementary stages: (1) a systematic review, conducted according to PRISMA guidelines, of studies applying MCDM methods in football and indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection; (2) a qualitative meta-synthesis designed to structure the identified decision-making dimensions into a parsimonious set of non-redundant offensive criteria; and (3) a single-round e-Delphi procedure involving 30 coaches holding a UEFA A or UEFA Pro licence, of whom 26 were retained for analysis after attention-check screening. The criteria were assessed using a seven-point Likert scale, with three instructional manipulation checks included to detect inattentive responses. The results showed a high level of inter-expert consensus for the eight retained criteria, with mean ratings ranging from 5.92 to 6.50 out of 7, coefficients of variation below 0.15, and Content Validity Ratio values ranging from 0.62 to 1.00, all exceeding the critical threshold. This framework provides a literature-based and expert-validated conceptual foundation that can be used as an entry point for MCDM applications applied to the evaluation of football forwards.