Friday 2 July 2010

World Cup

World Cup

The FA has a goalkeeper development website showing a woman goalkeeper in position to collect a low shot. She has clearly watched the path of the ball carefully, because everything is in alignment to intercept the ball. He hands are well forward, preparing to draw the ball in, “little fingers touching”, and her head is right over her hands, so will imminently be right over the ball. Because her body is square on, even if she fails to catch the ball, it could only bounce straight out. And because her head is so far forward, she could probably drop on to the ball easily if it did pop out.

As Robert Green tries to save a 25-yard shot from Clint Dempsey in England’s World cup match against USA, there are a number of differences from the textbook picture above. His head is not quite aligned with his hands, and neither is aligned with the ball. His hands are at uneven heights, and crossed. The ball appears to miss his left hand completely, hitting his right wrist. His body is twisted in the direction that the ball rebounds, into the net. It would appear that he did not track the ball accurately along its path, so did not align himself correctly.

And he is not the only one. You could see the same thing when Algerian goalkeeper Fawzi Chaouchi let in a goal against Slovenia. And a similar thing happened to Scott Carson playing for England against Croatia in 2007. The neural pathways in their brains must be established to enable them to make a textbook save; otherwise they wouldn’t be international goalkeepers. So why didn’t it happen in these cases?

One answer could be that they weren’t concentrating on the game adequately, so were simply late in seeing the shot coming towards them, and so didn’t have sufficient time to get into the correct position. This seems improbable for players at this level.

A more likely explanation is the effect of nerves. When you are nervous, the conscious, thinking part of the brain tries to take over, with the result that movements become a lot less smooth and efficient. Before the USA goal, Green made a clearance which he didn’t appear to hit with perfect timing, with the result that the ball fell to a group of USA players rather than to the intended target. But there could be another factor, which could be described as “falling into bad habits”.

You’re on a motorway, about to overtake the car in front. You check your mirrors, indicate and pull out to overtake, nearly hitting a car outside you that you hadn’t noticed. Although you looked, you didn’t look as carefully as you would have done if you’d been taking your test, for instance. You’ve actually been doing this for a while, but because on other occasions a car hadn’t been there, you had believed that what you had done was adequate, and it had become your routine in these situations.

For professional goalkeepers, a low shot from distance represents a relatively easy save. They can detect its path at an early stage, so might set themselves up on that basis, rather than following the path of the ball all the way. A less than perfect body position may also not matter on most occasions. But if the keeper’s made an early misjudgement, or nerves mean that his body has not moved as smoothly as normal, he can be found out.

Coaches need to watch out for a player who’s getting into bad habits, even if they seem to be getting away with it. Marking the ball with numbers or letters which the keeper has to call out as he catches it can ensure that he carefully follows the path of the ball. Players can sometimes give themselves a verbal reminder to ensure their technique remains solid.

I was umpiring a cricket match recently. It was near the end of the game, with the batting side about to win comfortably. I saw the batsman pull another ball to the boundary for four. It was only sometime later that the fielding side pointed out that the wicket had been broken. After seeing the player make the shot, I’d followed the ball, and hadn’t noticed that the batsman had hit his own wicket.

My mistake was a bit embarrassing, but some are rather more important. However, there, but for the grace of God, go all of us.

David

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