Penalty kicks are utilized in the knockout stages of major competitions to decide the outcome of tied games. They have decided the winner of more than 20% of World Cup matches, including the 2022 final, which France lost to Argentina. More than 30% of shoot-out kicks are missed, yet experts and commentators disagree over the effectiveness of practicing them.
Didier Deschamps, the French team’s manager, rebelled against the national football federation’s proposal that his players improve their preparations in March. “I find it inappropriate, and I would even say disrespectful,” remarked the man. “It is impossible to recreate a real penalty shoot-out on a psychological level.”
That may be true, but studies of a novel augmented-reality technology developed at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland show that penalty technique and success may be significantly improved—even among elite players. In an article published earlier this year in the journal The Innovation, the researchers demonstrated that just ten sessions of 20 kicks each increased the possibility of international-level youth players scoring a penalty by 35%.
Jean-Pierre Bresciani, a neuroscientist who leads the research, has said: “I cannot say we would get the same effect with Cristiano Ronaldo, because I haven’t tested him. But I can say over all the players we tested it works, and it really works”.
Working with players from FC Luzern and FC Basel, two Swiss clubs, the scientists had penalty takers wear a headgear that projected a goalkeeper avatar into the center of a genuine goal. Each player was then instructed to kick an actual ball into one or the other side of the goal, switching if the virtual goaltender moved in that direction. The headsets were also connected to an algorithm that could adjust the speed of the goalkeeper’s movements.
The headset considerably enhanced how quickly players reacted to an unexpected goalkeeper movement, reducing response time by an average of 120 milliseconds. This is 28% faster than before training, according to the experts, and corresponds to one-third more penalties scored.
Source: Economist
