By: Ming Sun

Almost half of all World Cup games are decided by penalty kicks, and every men’s World Cup has featured at least one penalty kick since 1978. Penalty kicks are therefore crucial in the world of soccer and are much more complex than just a shooter and a goalie. To put it in the words of Rafael Monteiro, a graduate student of rehabilitation and functional performance at the University of São Paulo, “It looks like a simple duel between the goalkeeper and the kicker, but actually, it’s a really complex environment” (The Washington Post).

In a penalty-kicking situation, the goalie needs to protect a goal measuring 24 feet by 8 feet from a shot sent from just 12 yards away coming in at an average rate of 70 miles per hour (The Washington Post). To make this job even more difficult, the average kick reaches the goal in about 400 milliseconds, which is the blink of an eye (The Washington Post). A goalie’s reaction time typically delays them 200 milliseconds, and added with the 500 milliseconds it typically takes to dive, their total dive time typically totals around 700 milliseconds (The Washington Post). Because it takes around 400 milliseconds for the ball to reach the goal, many goalies will start their dive 220 milliseconds before the actual kick itself, according to an analysis of 330 penalty kicks (The Washington Post). But there’s a trade-off going on here, as diving early sometimes results in an inaccurate judgment that leads to the kick being scored. Knowing all this, it shouldn’t be a surprise that 80% of penalty kickers score (The Washington Post).

Based on this information, the goalie might sound like an awful position to play, but again, there’s more to it. Since goalies have such a difficult task, there’s no expectation that they will save the shot. To put it in the words of Greg Wood, a sport and exercise psychologist at Manchester Metropolitan University Institute of Sport, “There’s no pressure on the goalkeeper” since it’s so difficult for them to block a penalty kick (The Washington Post). The real pressure is on the shooter since it’s up to them to make the shot that could potentially decide the outcome of a game.

Knowing what we do now, we should appreciate our goalies more, since they have to test the limits of human nature regularly.

Link to article: https://eb18600f7bb2916037f5ee8e636ce199.cdn.bubble.io/f1691331773019x431325124213836500/The%20psychology%20behind%20penalty%20kicks%20and%20reaction%20time%20in%20the%20World%20Cup%20-%20The%20Washington%20Post.pdf