“You don’t have a sixth sense,” team captain Diego told him after practice one day. “You just have better eyes than the rest of us.”

Coach Martinez laughed. “It’s not better eyes, Diego. It’s about where I choose to look and how I train my attention.”

Coach invited Diego to join him for the varsity girls’ game that evening. “I want to show you something important,” he said. “Something that might change the way you see the game forever.”

That evening, they sat in the bleachers watching the Westridge girls take on their rivals from Eastlake High. The game was intense, with both teams playing at their best.

“What do you see?” Coach Martinez asked Diego during a water break.

Diego shrugged. “Good game. Both teams are strong. Our girls are controlling the middle pretty well.”

Coach nodded. “You’re right. But let me show you what you’re missing.” He pulled out his tablet and replayed a clip he’d recorded from the first half. “Watch number seventeen on Eastlake.”

Diego focused on the player, a tall defender who seemed solid but unremarkable. “What about her?”

“Watch her right after she passes the ball. Every single time.”

Diego watched again. After the third replay, he saw it. “She looks down at her right ankle. Every time.”

“Exactly,” Coach said. “She’s injured but playing through it. That’s a weakness we could exploit, but only if we notice it. Now, watch our own midfielder, Sophia.”

Diego studied the video. “She’s playing great.”

“Yes, but look at her positioning when we don’t have the ball. See how she’s staying central instead of shifting to cover the right side like we practiced?”

Diego hadn’t noticed this detail at all, despite having watched the entire first half. “How do you catch these things in real-time, Coach? There’s so much happening on the field.”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Coach Martinez said. “It’s called inattentional blindness. Our brains can only process so much information at once, so we filter most of it out. We literally don’t see things that are right in front of us if we’re focusing on something else.”

Diego looked skeptical. “But you see everything.”

“Not everything,” Coach corrected. “I’ve just trained myself to look for specific patterns and to shift my attention systematically. When most people watch soccer, they follow the ball. That’s natural, but it means missing almost everything else happening on the field.”

As the second half began, Coach gave Diego a challenge. “Don’t watch the ball for the next five minutes. Instead, focus on how Eastlake’s defenders position themselves when our team has possession in their half.”

Diego tried, but his eyes kept getting pulled back to the ball and the action surrounding it. After five minutes, Coach asked what he’d observed.

“It’s really hard not to watch the ball,” Diego admitted. “But I did notice their defenders form a diamond shape when the ball is on the wings.”

“Good! That’s something we can use in our game against them next week,” Coach said. “Now, try something else. Watch only our forwards’ movements when they don’t have the ball.”

This exercise continued throughout the second half, with Coach directing Diego’s attention to different aspects of the game: player fatigue signs, communication patterns between teammates, how certain players reacted after making mistakes.

“There’s another fascinating aspect to this called absence blindness,” Coach explained during another break in play. “It’s when we fail to notice what’s not happening that should be happening.”

“What do you mean?” Diego asked.

“Look at Eastlake’s captain, number ten. What’s she not doing that she should be?”

Diego watched carefully for several minutes. “She’s… not talking to her teammates?”

“Exactly! A captain should be constantly communicating, especially when the team is under pressure. But she’s gone silent in the last ten minutes. That suggests she’s either fatigued or frustrated—another weakness we can potentially exploit.”

By the end of the game (a 2-1 victory for Westridge), Diego’s head was spinning with all the details he’d previously been blind to.

“This is overwhelming,” he confessed as they walked to the parking lot. “How do you keep track of all this during our games?”

“Years of practice,” Coach said. “And I don’t try to see everything at once. I have a system. First half, I focus on individual players—their strengths, weaknesses, tendencies. Second half, I look more at team patterns and adjustments. During breaks, I look for signs of fatigue or frustration.”

“Could you teach me to see like you do?” Diego asked.

“That’s exactly why I brought you here tonight,” Coach replied with a smile. “As team captain, you need to develop this awareness. The best players don’t just see the ball—they see the whole game.”

The following week, before their match against Eastlake, Diego and Coach Martinez met early to discuss strategy.

“I’ve been practicing what you taught me,” Diego said. “I watched videos of Eastlake’s last three games, focusing on different elements each time.”

“What did you notice?” Coach asked.

“Their right midfielder always looks left before crossing, even when there’s no one there. Their goalkeeper shouts instructions during corner kicks that tell us exactly how they’re organizing their defense. And…” Diego hesitated, then smiled proudly, “their star striker hasn’t been making recovery runs in the last twenty minutes of recent games. I think he gets tired.”

Coach Martinez nodded approvingly. “That’s excellent observation, Diego. Now, do you see why understanding inattentional blindness matters?”

“Because there’s a whole game happening that most people never notice,” Diego replied.

“Exactly. And the players who overcome this limitation—who train themselves to see what others miss—they’re the ones who become exceptional.”

That afternoon, Westridge defeated Eastlake 3-0, with Diego assisting on two goals by recognizing patterns that would have previously escaped his attention.

After the game, as the team celebrated, Coach Martinez pulled Diego aside. “What did you see today that others missed?”

Diego thought for a moment. “I noticed when their defenders started communicating less in the second half. I saw the space opening up behind their right back whenever their midfielder pushed too far forward. But most importantly,” he added with a grin, “I saw opportunities that were invisible to me just a week ago.”

Coach nodded with satisfaction. “The field hasn’t changed, Diego. The players haven’t changed. What’s changed is your perception. And in soccer, as in life, how you direct your attention determines what reality you experience.”

From that day forward, Diego began helping his teammates develop this same awareness, showing them how to overcome their own inattentional blindness. By the end of the season, Westridge wasn’t just playing better soccer—they were seeing a completely different game than their opponents.