Purpose: One of the important functions in the football game is the decision-making function, which should be improved and promoted. Therefore, the current research was conducted with the aim of determining and comparing the effectiveness of teaching game for understanding, sports teaching and their combination on the decision-making performance in the football game of students. Methodology: The present research method was semi-experimental with a pre-test and post-test design without a control group. The statistical population of this study was all male students aged 10 to 12 years in Tehran city in the fourth to sixth grades. The sample of the research was 60 people who were selected by the purposive sampling method and randomly replaced in three experimental groups. The research tool was game performance evaluation tool (G-PET), which evaluates game performance from different aspects including decision-making (passing, dribbling and shooting). The first experimental group was trained with the method of teaching game for understanding, the second experimental group was trained with the method of sports teaching 15 sessions, and the third experimental group was trained with their combination method. The data were analyzed with the methods of paired t-test, one-way analysis of variance and LSD post hoc test in SPSS version 25 software at a significance level of 0.05. Findings: The results showed that all three methods of teaching game for understanding, sports teaching and their combination improved the decision-making performance in the football game of students (P<0.001). Also, there was a significant difference between the three groups in terms of decision-making performance; So that the effectiveness of teaching game for understanding was higher in compared to sports teaching and their combination, and in addition, the effectiveness of combined teaching was higher in compared to sports teaching (P<0.001). Conclusion: According to the results of the present research, to improve the decision-making performance in the football game of students can use the method of teaching game for understanding, method of combining teaching game for understanding and sports teaching, and finally, the method of sports teaching.
