GOALKEEPERS stand more chance of saving a penalty if they focus on the
kicker鈥檚 hips as he shapes up to shoot, say researchers who鈥檝e analysed keepers鈥�
penalty-saving strategies. The advice could mean the difference between success
and failure in penalty shoot-outs to decide tied games in Euro 2000, the
European football championships which begins this weekend.
The research, presented last month in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, at the second
Asian congress on science and football suggests that in the split second before
the penalty taker strikes the ball, the orientation of his hips betrays the
direction the ball will travel. Armed with this information, the keeper can move
to block a shot in the half second it takes to reach the goal.
鈥淚f the taker鈥檚 hips are square-on to the goalkeeper in a right-footed
kicker, the penalty tends to go to the right-hand side of the keeper,鈥� says Mark
Williams, head of science and football at Liverpool John Moores University, who
gave the talk in Malaysia. 鈥淚f his hips are more `open鈥�, or angled away from the
goalkeeper, the kick tends to go to the left of the keeper.鈥�
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Williams investigated saving strategies by showing goalkeepers life-sized
video footage of penalty takers approaching and striking penalties, filmed from
the point of view of a goalkeeper standing at the centre of the goal. Williams
stopped the film four times: 120 milliseconds before the kick, 40 milliseconds
before, at the point of impact, and 40 milliseconds afterwards.
Goalkeepers who played semi-professionally were consistently better than
unskilled amateurs at predicting which of four target spots in the goal the ball
would hit. At 120 milliseconds before impact, half the semi-pro keepers guessed
correctly. The success rate rose to 62 per cent 40 milliseconds before, and 82
per cent at impact. At each stage, the experienced keepers were 10 percentage
points ahead of the amateurs.
Questionnaires to the keepers about what they look out for revealed the key
importance of the hips and other cues. 鈥淭he angle of the run-up, the orientation
of the non-kicking foot, the orientation of the lower leg and the lean of the
trunk were all important,鈥� says Williams.
Research in Canada, meanwhile, favours the orientation of the non-kicking
foot as the most informative cue. When Ian Franks and Todd Harvey of the
University of British Columbia in Vancouver analysed 138 penalties in World Cup
competitions between 1982 and 1994, they found that in 80 per cent of the kicks,
the non-kicking foot pointed where the ball would go.
Williams agrees that the non-kicking foot is a good predictor, but says it is
difficult for goalkeepers to see it. 鈥淭he position of the foot is very difficult
to discriminate from the ground,鈥� he says.