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Something we just sent out in our newsletter:
14. …Seaman Saves England?
Research designed to enable goalkeepers to significantly improve their chances of saving a penalty may help England to banish the penalty shootout nightmares that have dogged the team in major competitions over the past decade.
University of Greenwich sports scientists, working with West Ham United football academy, have completed a study proving that penalty takers subconsciously give readable physical clues to the direction of their penalty kicks. These clues could be used by goalkeepers to improve their chances of saving a penalty.
According to the research many goalkeepers rely too much on their gut instinct and non-informative visual clues such as the direction a striker is looking when taking a penalty. This leads to relevant visual clues being obscured, resulting in a misreading of the direction of a penalty taker’s shot. Goalkeepers can improve their chances by increasing the psychological pressure on a penalty taker, who will already be feeling under pressure from expectant team-mates and the crowd. This can be done by a goalkeeper employing time-wasting tactics, making himself look as large as possible, and moving around sideways on his line in order to confuse the striker as to where he is going to dive.
FURTHER INFORMATION:
http://www.gre.ac.uk/pr/pressreleases/673.htm</blockquo