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Anticipating the Direction of Soccer Penalty Shots Depends on the Speed and Technique of the Kick

To succeed at a sport, athletes must manage the biomechanical trade-offs that constrain their performance. Here, we investigate a previously unknown trade-off in soccer: how the speed of a kick makes the outcome more predictable to an opponent. For this analysis, we focused on penalty kicks to build...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Hunter, Andrew H., Murphy, Sean C., Angilletta, Michael J., Wilson, Robbie S.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6162804/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30060599
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/sports6030073
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author Hunter, Andrew H.
Murphy, Sean C.
Angilletta, Michael J.
Wilson, Robbie S.
author_facet Hunter, Andrew H.
Murphy, Sean C.
Angilletta, Michael J.
Wilson, Robbie S.
author_sort Hunter, Andrew H.
collection PubMed
description To succeed at a sport, athletes must manage the biomechanical trade-offs that constrain their performance. Here, we investigate a previously unknown trade-off in soccer: how the speed of a kick makes the outcome more predictable to an opponent. For this analysis, we focused on penalty kicks to build on previous models of factors that influence scoring. More than 700 participants completed an online survey, watching videos of penalty shots from the perspective of a goalkeeper. Participants (ranging in soccer playing experience from never played to professional) watched 60 penalty kicks, each of which was occluded at a particular moment (−0.4 s to 0.0 s) before the kicker contacted the ball. For each kick, participants had to predict shot direction toward the goal (left or right). As expected, predictions became more accurate as time of occlusion approached ball contact. However, the effect of occlusion was more pronounced when players kicked with the side of the foot than when they kicked with the top of the foot (instep). For side-foot kicks, the direction of shots was predicted more accurately for faster kicks, especially when a large portion of the kicker’s approach was presented. Given the trade-off between kicking speed and directional predictability, a penalty kicker might benefit from kicking below their maximal speed.
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spelling pubmed-61628042018-10-09 Anticipating the Direction of Soccer Penalty Shots Depends on the Speed and Technique of the Kick Hunter, Andrew H. Murphy, Sean C. Angilletta, Michael J. Wilson, Robbie S. Sports (Basel) Article To succeed at a sport, athletes must manage the biomechanical trade-offs that constrain their performance. Here, we investigate a previously unknown trade-off in soccer: how the speed of a kick makes the outcome more predictable to an opponent. For this analysis, we focused on penalty kicks to build on previous models of factors that influence scoring. More than 700 participants completed an online survey, watching videos of penalty shots from the perspective of a goalkeeper. Participants (ranging in soccer playing experience from never played to professional) watched 60 penalty kicks, each of which was occluded at a particular moment (−0.4 s to 0.0 s) before the kicker contacted the ball. For each kick, participants had to predict shot direction toward the goal (left or right). As expected, predictions became more accurate as time of occlusion approached ball contact. However, the effect of occlusion was more pronounced when players kicked with the side of the foot than when they kicked with the top of the foot (instep). For side-foot kicks, the direction of shots was predicted more accurately for faster kicks, especially when a large portion of the kicker’s approach was presented. Given the trade-off between kicking speed and directional predictability, a penalty kicker might benefit from kicking below their maximal speed. MDPI 2018-07-29 /pmc/articles/PMC6162804/ /pubmed/30060599 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/sports6030073 Text en © 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Hunter, Andrew H.
Murphy, Sean C.
Angilletta, Michael J.
Wilson, Robbie S.
Anticipating the Direction of Soccer Penalty Shots Depends on the Speed and Technique of the Kick
title Anticipating the Direction of Soccer Penalty Shots Depends on the Speed and Technique of the Kick
title_full Anticipating the Direction of Soccer Penalty Shots Depends on the Speed and Technique of the Kick
title_fullStr Anticipating the Direction of Soccer Penalty Shots Depends on the Speed and Technique of the Kick
title_full_unstemmed Anticipating the Direction of Soccer Penalty Shots Depends on the Speed and Technique of the Kick
title_short Anticipating the Direction of Soccer Penalty Shots Depends on the Speed and Technique of the Kick
title_sort anticipating the direction of soccer penalty shots depends on the speed and technique of the kick
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6162804/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30060599
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/sports6030073
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