By: Ray Wu

The average human being’s reaction time is about 250 milliseconds. Because of this, professional goalkeepers can only block a penalty kick by reacting more than 200 milliseconds BEFORE the ball gets kicked, a study shows. How do they do that? It all comes down to experience.

Did you know that about one out of every two World Cup games is decided by a penalty shootout? That may seem like a lot, but game scores are always very close in the Soccer World Cup. This is because scoring in soccer isn’t as easy as it is in most other sports, like basketball, creating a smaller score gap between teams. This makes penalty kicks vital to the game.

“So many games have been won by a single goal that has been a penalty. It’s disproportionately more important than any other game”, states Robbie Wilson, a professor at the University of Queensland (The Washington Post).

Blocking a penalty kick is very difficult because the shooter has a large net to score on from a short distance. The ball launches at an average speed of about 70 miles per hour, reaching the goal in about 400 milliseconds. That’s about how long it takes the average human to blink!

The average trained goalkeeper has a reaction time that’s faster than the average human, sitting at around 150 milliseconds—shaving off a lot of otherwise wasted time. The goalkeeper then has 250 milliseconds to block the ball. However, it can take half a second, or 500 milliseconds, to block the ball—which isn’t enough time. Unsurprisingly, about 80% of the penalty shots succeed.

To combat the fact that it takes longer to save a shot than it does to kick it, most professionals jump about 200 milliseconds before the kicker contacts the ball by predicting where the ball may go. That means they can reach the ball 300 milliseconds after it starts moving, giving the goalie enough time to throw the ball off its trajectory.

“The good goalkeepers don’t guess, but they try to anticipate based on a number of cues that the penalty takers give off,” says Greg Wood, a sport psychologist (The Washington Post).

Some kickers try to trick the goalie. This still comes with risks, like putting yourself in a situation where you increase your chance of missing the goal.

“Now, you have to have such a strong will to do that because if you miss, you look like a complete idiot,” says Wilson (The Washington Post).

The odds are still against the goalkeeper during penalty shots.

“There’s no pressure on the goalkeeper. If they save one, they are a hero, since they weren’t expected to save it,” Wood stated (The Washington Post).