An interactive experiment
Position Before You Know
Your teammate is about to pass. You can support the attack, but possession could change. Where would you stand?
Switch views at any time; your progress in each is kept.
Where could you help next?
Drag the person labeled You inside the shaded area, or use the position sliders. Your team attacks to the right →
This explores preparing for a change in the play. Read “Positioned for losing” →
Solid: this run · dashed path and ring: previous run
What did your position make possible?
Your starting position changes which responses remain possible after the play becomes clear. There is no single score here: the illustration assigns neither probabilities nor values to the two futures.
Reaching a space gives you an opportunity to help. It does not guarantee a completed pass, a goal, or a stopped counterattack.
Read the essay: Position Before You Know →How this illustration works
This is a simplified movement model inspired by the essay’s football example, not measured match data or a tactical recommendation. Coordinates use a 100 × 60 unit section of pitch. You start at forward position 25–65 and across-pitch position 18–50. Receiving space is at (82, 20); cover space is at (18, 42).
You move directly toward the selected space at 10 units per model second, with 3 model seconds available. Travel time = straight-line distance ÷ 10. Arrival margin = 3 − travel time. Zero means arriving exactly as the window closes. Numbers are rounded for display, not for classifying arrival.
The teammate’s starting position and the two destinations remain fixed. The ball path identifies the continuation; your movement begins after that continuation becomes visible. Replaying fixes all conditions; switching continuation changes the destination but preserves your starting position. No random outcomes, collisions, offside, reaction delay, or opponent adaptation are modeled. Playback motion is shortened; it is not a real-time clock.
When do you make the run?
You are the striker. A cross could reach either post. Start a run, or let the play develop one second at a time.
This explores the essay’s next step: when the play becomes clear, commit. Read “Then make the run” →
Shaded area: where you can still arrive. Green line: your run. Dashed: previous run.Blue trail and corner marks: the cross’s observed direction, separate from whether you can reach it.
When keeping options open costs you the chance
Your starting position kept both posts reachable. As time passed, the space you could still reach shrank. A run gives up some alternatives to make you available somewhere specific.
A successful early run does not prove you knew the destination. A late run can miss even when you choose the right post. Replay the same cross to change only your actions and their timing.
This demonstrates reachability under fixed movement rules. Reaching the cross is an opportunity to receive it, not a guaranteed goal. Neither cross is assigned a probability.
Read the essay: Then make the run →How this cross works
This is a curated, deterministic illustration. Both posts begin reachable. Your initial position is (68,35); the near and far receiving spaces are (84,23) and (84,47). You move 10 units per model second. The cross arrives at 4 seconds. A run moves you one second toward the chosen space; advancing continues your current run or holds your initial position if you have not chosen one. You can redirect with the other run button.
At 1 second the teammate’s preparation suggests a destination; at 2 seconds the cross’s direction is explicit. These cues are part of the chosen story, not a probability estimate. The gray preparation hint is tentative. Blue flight and corner marks appear only once the ball is in flight; the trail ends at the ball’s observed position, with no future flight segment drawn. Blue shows the destination indicated by the curated cue, while teal/amber/slate independently show your reachability. The graphic reveals only the flight already observed. Each receiving space is a point; no collisions, offside, acceleration, reaction delay, opponent adaptation, or finishing ability are modeled. The shaded region is the remaining straight-line travel budget, not a region of likely ball destinations.
Replay keeps the cross and its cues fixed, but you now know what happened. A replay isolates movement and timing; it cannot measure your original foresight. Trying the other cross resets time and movement and explicitly changes the story. A saved completed run stays labeled with its original cross.