The aim of the present study is to develop knowledge about and knowledge how professional football coaches come to know that the essence of their instructions has been understood by their players, with particular focus on the theoretical aspects of the game.

The background to this study is based on recent rapid developments in the game, as it changes from a strictly controlled system–oriented game to a game where the individual player is expected to perform multiple roles and change position during a match. This is a development which places increasing demands on the players' ‘game sense’ and general understanding of the game. 98% of the game of football is a game that is not played with the ball at the player’s feet. Rather, it is a game where the player’s cognitive ability (i) to read the other players’ movements and (ii) to continually shift position in response to these movements is a key factor. This development also places greater demands on the coach’s knowledge of the game, pedagogic competence, and ability to communicate not only the learning situation’s direct object but also the indirect object of the learning situation. This involves the player understanding how to act in a way that benefits the team, even when the unpredictable events that take place during a football match do not coincide with the patterns of movement which the coach may have prepared his players for.

Twenty-three professional football coaches were asked two questions. The first question addresses the theoretical knowledge domain instantiated by a player's ‘game sense’, from which the second question follows:

1. How do coaches define the concept of ‘game sense’?
2. How do coaches look for confirmation that the players have understood the essence of their instructions?

The study employs a phenomenographic approach which is broadened and deepened so as to produce a richer interpretation by the use of semiotics, somatic markers, and pattern recognition (from the field of cognitive science). A hermeneutic approach laid the foundation for the description of the respondents' everyday professional life. By applying these additional approaches, the phenomenographic approach to developed as a phenomenography of listening, thereby creating the basis for a qualitative analysis.

This study argues that football is a cognitive sport, where the concept of ‘game sense’ is described as the player's ability to read, interpret, and act in a situation. The study also shows that confirmation of whether a player has understood the essence of his coach’s instructions is limited to what the coach sees in the form of the decisions and actions that can be observed during training sessions and the match. This confirmation is expressed merely as I see it. It is also apparent that across the coaches, with some exceptions, there is no conscious strategy for how a coach might confirm whether a player has actually understood the learning situation's indirect object, namely the essence of the instruction issued by the coach.