Critical sensorial information for a goalkeeper engaged in penalty

Cognitive sport psychology is an emerging reality in the domain of experimental human sciences for a better understanding of how athletes develop mental strategies to optimise their performance. This aim can be achieved, for instance, by using the paradigms of visual sciences in analysing the sensorial cues available to an athlete performing a specific motor task. In soccer, a typical motor action is that of the goalkeeper trying to save a penalty shot. Video-recording of a large number of penalty kicks from the goalkeeper's point of view can be used to set up a video-test and a video-training to be proposed to the goalkeeper. The aim of the present work was to investigate which are the relevant visual cues informing the goalkeeper about the final direction and the speed of the ball. We asked several semi-professional soccer players to take a large number of penalties. They were requested to shoot for goal to eight different locations. All the penalties were video-recorded from the goalkeeper's perspective. Video-training was based on the systematic manipulation of the visual information coming from different parts of the shooter's body. We found that it is possible to manage relevant visual cues to make the goalkeeper improve her/his performance by using visual search mental strategies to activate the right motor reactions