A novel action-based model of anticipatory and team synergic behavior using cluster phase analysis

Anticipation is essential for successfully performing in dynamic environments, yet it is often framed as mentally inferring a future state without considering how action is embodied and embedded. This paper introduces an action-based approach to anticipation and team synergies based on perception-action couplings. Using football as a case study, we measured anticipation as the players’ prospective coordination with the match environment towards task objectives. We explored how team synergic behavior emerged from players’ anticipatory movements, guiding the teams’ ability to maintain goal directed behavior. Defender-ball-goal angles were computed from game positional data and submitted to cluster phase analysis to develop a team coherence model expressing how defenders collectively blocked the progression of the ball towards goal. Cross-correlation analysis measured defender-ball coupling strength and delay (ρ), capturing how defenders coordinated with the ball to sustain and interchange among blocking roles, so the team could maintain coherence. Results showed that higher coupling strengths (ρ) were associated with defenders’ anticipatory movements in relation to the ball, exhibited by negative coupling delays (median lag = -1.02 s). This indicates that defenders coordinated their movements with future ball positions to assume and interchange among blocking roles. Regression analysis showed a strong association (R² = .74) between blocking role interchanges and team coherence stability. This action-based approach helped clarify how perception-action is coordinated among team members to foster team synergies, offering a comprehensive framework for studying anticipation as an embodied and embedded human skill, while providing a tool for its broader application across group performance domains.