• Expert players made better decisions than novice players.
• The number and duration of vision fixation of expert and novice players are different.
• The complexity of the skill is high in 5 vs. 5 attacks.

Abstract

Background: The mechanisms involved in expert performance have been the focus of many researchers. One of these mechanisms is visual skills. Many researchers have tried to compare these skills among expert and novice athletes to provide different solutions to enhance their expert performance. The purpose of this study was to compare the decision-making and visual search behavior of expert and novice football players.
Methods: Participants included 14 novice male football players with an average age of 22.5 years and 14 expert male football players with an average age of 27.4 years. Both groups observed 5 attack vs. 5 attack mice. They then announced their decision, which included four pass choices by the ball-striker. At the same time, visual search behavior was assessed with the visual detector. Independent T-test was used to evaluate decision-making, saccade movements, number and time of fixations. Equality of variances was used by Levon's test.
Results: Results showed that there was a significant difference in decision making between the two groups of expert and novice players (P <0.05). There was no significant difference in saccade movements, number and time of fixation between the two groups of expert and novice players (P <0.05).
Conclusion: Expert football players may be able to extract more relevant decision-making information from the same visual field as compared to the novice player that will help to make more accurate decisions.