Introduction: The skillful football players would pick up the advance cues by observing the movement of opponents to achieve various interceptions on a football field. However, the deceptive and disguise passing movements of the opponents could affect the interception accuracy of defenders. In ecological viewpoint, dynamical action capability is one of measures that interpretive the visual guidance of action. Previous studies had demonstrated individual action capabilities affected the interceptive timing and accuracy of goalkeepers. Through the interactive virtual reality, this study investigated the interception behavior of football players. Moreover, we tested the effect of the deceptive and non-deceptive passing at different distances to assess whether the deception and passing distances affect the interception performance. Methods: Twenty football players (21.2 ± 1.6 years) were recruited and assigned to two groups by action capability (according to the shortest running time). The participants who played the defenders were asked to watch the short-passing films and to intercept the passing. The initial timing, direction accuracy rate, and interception time error, three dependent variables were recorded. The data were analyzed by 2(action capability) ×6(passing distances) ×2(deception) mixed design 3-way ANOVAs. Results: The data analysis demonstrated significant interaction between passing distances and deception in all dependent variables. Only on the initial timing for interception, a mixed design ANOVA showed significant main effect of action capability. The faster defenders revealed later initial timing in comparison with slower defenders (faster group: 496ms; slower group: 357ms). The opponent’s deceptive act induced earlier initiating movement of the defenders (deceptive: 369ms; non-deceptive: 447ms) when passing distance between attacker and defender was short. It also reduced the accuracy of judging direction and increased the time error of interception. Conclusion: The difference of defender’s action capability affects the timing of interception response. Additionally, passing distances and deception interactive influence the judgment and accuracy for interception.