Receive First: Rethinking Football's Fundamental Skill

It’s one of football’s most common maxims. Pass and receive. Pass and receive. From U10 on up, these skills sit at the center of player development and appear in some shape or form in every team’s training session. Pass and receive.

As coaches, we typically refer to the skills of passing and receiving the ball in that order. Passing first, receiving second. But if we think about it, the order should be the other way around. Why?

The Primacy of Receiving

With the exception of dead ball restarts of play, every player’s first action on the ball is always the act of receiving. Even a one touch pass is as much an act of receiving as it is of passing. How a player receives the ball informs and dictates what their options will be thereafter, whether it’s to pass, dribble, or shoot. Receiving the ball is the most common of acts performed by a player when their team is in possession.

Guardiola is right. The order should be switched. The “taking”, or receiving of the ball, comes first. The best players, the ones I like to say who “play in the future”, understand this. By “the future”, I don’t mean the next few hundred years, but the next few hundred milliseconds. How a player is able to invite the ball onto their foot and establish their options for subsequent touches provides an important advantage over those defending them. When you have the ball, you have control. The more control a player can assert over the ball, over the space and time around them, and over the situation generally, the greater their advantage will be against those defending them.

Learning from the Best: Martin Ødegaard

One of my favorite players at the moment is Norway and Arsenal captain, Martin Ødegaard. Aside from being one of the most technically gifted attacking players in the game, he is an exemplar of receiving the ball. Ødegaard has mastered the key ingredients of the art of receiving. These ingredients are:

• Scanning before the ball arrives

• Body shape when receiving

• Use of different receiving surfaces

• First touch direction based on defensive pressure

I recently came across this video that provides an in-depth analysis of Ødegaard’s proficiency for the first of these – scanning before the ball arrives. What you’ll see in this video are not just examples of where he demonstrates this skill, but a quantitative breakdown of how often he does it, and more importantly, how it leads to his ability to provide attacking options for his team. It’s quite remarkable.

What this video reveals is how much of Ødegaard’s success relies upon the work he is doing before and as he receives the ball. Once in possession and having asserted control and attacking intent with his first touch, he has maximized his advantages over defenders, opening up space and time for himself and for his teammates to exploit. He has seized the initiative and is dictating play.

Coaching Receiving Skills

Now, don’t expect your players to just turn up on the training ground and start playing like a world class midfielder just because they’re checking over their shoulder with more frequency. Ødegaard has been cultivating these habits for years to the point that he’s not even aware of what he’s doing to take in so much visual information in such short periods of time. It is on the training ground (and, it seems, in the VR headset) that he has been developing these skills.

But there are things you can be doing as a coach to start building these skills in your players. I’ve written about the benefits of small-sided games before and this is another case where you can help your players develop their scanning and first touch. No need to overthink it. 4v4 or 4v4+1 and limiting player touches is an absolutely brilliant activity for this. Check out this video:

Coaching Tips

• Implement "two-touch minimum" constraints to focus on control

• Adjust field size to increase or decrease the challenge for players

• Brief (very brief) stoppages of play to remind players to constantly check their surroundings and consider how to improve their chances for a high percentage second touch.

• Celebrate good receiving technique as much as scoring – it's often what makes the goal possible. Help players understand that their first touch sets up everything that follows.

Conclusion

The best players don't just receive the ball – they take control of the game's next moment. Their mastery of reception creates opportunities that others miss and transforms pressure into advantage. By emphasizing receiving skills in training and helping players understand its importance, we develop footballers who can truly "play in the future." Great passing starts with great receiving. And remember, every moment in football begins with that crucial first touch.

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