In sum, we investigate whether it is possible to train the perceptual–cognitive skill of pattern recognition between display features (i.e., players) using soccer as the vehicle. In light of the absence of any significant effects in the study by Gorman and Farrow (2009), which used elite basketball players, we examined whether this skill was amenable to training using a more novice population group. Also, we compared the relative effectiveness of four different instructional methods. Participants were assigned to either a verbal cueing, visual cueing, video only with no cueing, or a control condition. Finally, given recent findings which have suggested recognition skill may not be as closely related to anticipation as previously thought (North et al., 2009, 2011), we examined whether the benefits of training pattern recognition transfers to improvements in anticipation accuracy. Since previously researchers have shown a variety of instructional approaches to be effective in training perceptual–cognitive skill in micro-contexts, we hypothesized that all three experimental conditions would improve recognition performance from pre- to post-test in comparison to a control group. Also, we expected the verbal cueing and visual cueing groups to improve more than the video only group given that their attention was being directed to those features identified as most important in successful recognition judgments (see North et al., 2009, 2011; Williams et al., 2012a). Since only a few researchers have directly tested different instructional methods, producing contradictory results, we had no a priori hypothesis as to whether visual or verbal cueing would be more effective in training recognition. As knowledge and awareness of patterns of play has consistently been identified as a characteristic of expert performers (Abernethy et al., 2005; Williams et al., 2006), and even published reports suggesting the skill may not be central to anticipation performance (North et al., 2009, 2011) report positive correlations between the two, our final hypothesis was that successfully training the ability to recognize patterns of play would result in improvements in anticipation accuracy.