THE GOALKEEPER'S SAVING SENSES

It is not just the distinctive jersey that sets the keeper apart in a football team. According to a recent study from Ireland, players in this position process the sensory stimuli they are confronted with on the pitch very differently to how their team members see and hear the game. Assessing the study's findings, German goalkeeping coach Florian Beck told our channels that the difference makes sense. As a former goalkeeper in the Irish NIFL Premiership, Michael Quinn had a suspicion that he wanted to explore scientifically as a student of biopsychology. In his own experience, goalkeepers were clearly "weird guys" and undoubtedly different from everyone else on the pitch. The observation was once made intuitively, though not very scientifically by the legendary Italian goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon. "Unlike other football players, goalkeepers are required to make thousands of very fast decisions based on limited or incomplete sensory information,"...