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Library›Sensory Sensors - Vision›This article

Goalkeeper gaze: penalty anticipation and perceptual training, what 50 studies say

Goalkeeper anticipation in football, handball and hockey: what experts look at, what video training changes, and what is still missing.

By the LabO RNP teamReading time 25 minUpdated 2026

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Contents

  1. Goalkeeper anticipation: reading the kicker before contact
  2. What expert goalkeepers look at when facing a penalty
  3. In front of the screen or facing the kicker, the goalkeeper's gaze changes
  4. The goalkeeper's quiet eye: clear in hockey, debated in football
  5. Handball goalkeeper and hockey goalkeeper: 7-m throws, puck and drag-flick
  6. Training goalkeeper anticipation: video, cues and kicker preferences
  7. The duel seen from the shooter's side: what the goalkeeper provokes
  8. From video to the save in a match: the link nobody has measured
  9. Links between the studies
  10. The limits of the goalkeeper file, and the missing trial
  11. Double vision, blur, dizziness: who to consult for a goalkeeper
  12. Why the dive is part of the goalkeeper's perception
  13. Goalkeeper anticipation: five coaches' questions
  14. Sources

In brief. In football, handball and hockey, expert goalkeepers anticipate the shot better than novices, and their gaze changes as soon as they have to dive. Perceptual training improves anticipation on video, with up to five months of retention in one trial, but no controlled trial has counted saves in matches. 50 studies analyzed. Updated on November 3, 2026.

Hello to you, the movement professional,

The same experienced football goalkeepers, five ways of responding to the penalty: by voice or joystick in front of a video, then, facing the kicker, by voice, with a simplified movement or by actually diving. As long as the body moves little, their eyes stay longer on the kicker than on the ball. When the shot has to be stopped, gaze time is split equally between the two (Dicks et al., 2010a). Modeled over time by the same team, the gaze of the diving goalkeeper lands first on the kicker's head, then shifts to the ball for roughly the last second before the strike (Button et al., 2011).

The goalkeeper coach sees the problem straight away: a good part of what we know about goalkeeper gaze was measured in front of a screen, and the screen changes the gaze. So what does an expert goalkeeper pick up before the ball leaves, and what is left, at the dive, of what they are taught on video?

Goalkeeper anticipation: reading the kicker before contact

For a goalkeeper, anticipating means committing to the save on what the kicker shows before the ball or the puck leaves. Researchers cut the video of the shot before, during or just after contact (temporal occlusion), record where the eyes land and measure the quiet eye, the last stable fixation before the action, detailed in our article on the quiet eye in precision movements.

Twelve goalkeepers and twelve outfield players, who had to intercept filmed penalties, do not exploit the cues visible before impact when they leave before the strike; the goalkeepers start faster and, according to the authors, then bet on the probabilities of the situation (Peiyong and Inomata, 2012). The motor reaction time therefore weighs on strategy. On penalties taken by professional and semi-professional players, the goalkeeper commits to the side of the save before contact, and to the height about 245 ms afterward, on the trajectory of the ball (Higueras-Herbada et al., 2020). The side is read on the kicker, the height on the ball.

What expert goalkeepers look at when facing a penalty

On filmed penalties, expert goalkeepers predict better, wait longer and use fewer, longer fixations: novices linger on the trunk, arms and hips, experts on the kicking leg, the standing leg and the ball (Savelsbergh et al., 2002). Among experts, the most accurate seem to fixate the standing leg longer (Savelsbergh et al., 2005). With the standing leg doctored on 20 of 40 videos, 17 goalkeepers nevertheless predict just as well: according to the authors, the gaze anchors on the kicking leg and the ball, and peripheral vision completes the reading (Woolley et al., 2015). Judgments track information spread across several body segments (Diaz et al., 2012), and patterned shirts that mask the alignment of the hips only hinder skilled goalkeepers (Causer and Williams, 2015).

This reading remains specific to the sport: among 216 athletes, skilled footballers guess the penalty better than all the others, less skilled footballers included (Andrew and Causer, 2022). In open play, elite goalkeepers also spot the future shooter earlier (Murphy et al., 2025), an information pickup close to scanning in football.

Study

Sport

Population (n)

Task

What was measured

Result

Level of evidence

Savelsbergh 2002

Football

Expert and novice goalkeepers (n not specified in the abstract)

Filmed penalties, joystick response

Accuracy, timing, fixations

Experts more accurate, later, fewer and longer fixations

Low

Woolley 2015

Football

17 goalkeepers, 20 outfield players, 20 controls

40 videos cut at contact, standing leg doctored on 20

Corner prediction, gaze

Goalkeepers better, standing leg not decisive

Low

Peiyong 2012

Football

12 goalkeepers, 12 outfield players

Interception of filmed penalties, cut from 467 ms before to 267 ms after impact

Accuracy, start time

Cues before impact unexploited, goalkeepers faster

Low

Higueras-Herbada 2020

Football

Professional and semi-professional players (reanalysis)

Real penalties

Shot height, kinematics, goalkeeper start

Side committed before contact, height about 245 ms after

Low

Ji 2023

Football

17 semi-elite goalkeepers and 18 non-athletes, then 27 and 27

Videos cut 50 and 100 ms before contact, prior information on direction

Accuracy, event-related potentials

Prior direction information improves accuracy

Low

Murta 2022

Football

20 experienced goalkeepers, 20 novices

Filmed penalties, kicker's preference announced as correct, false or absent

Anticipation, fixations

Better anticipation with correct information; goalkeepers superior to novices without information or with false information, longer gaze on the trunk, hips and both legs

Low

Murphy 2025

Football

30 goalkeepers (10 elite, 10 sub-elite, 10 amateur)

Excerpts of 11 v 11 play, clipped

Identification of the future shooter

Elites earlier and more accurate

Low

Shafizadeh 2016

Football

20 Premier League goalkeepers, 42 duels (20 goals, 22 saves)

One-on-one in matches, 2013-2014 season

Closing the distance, timing

Goals conceded linked to delayed movement toward the shooter

Low, but in matches

Panchuk 2006

Ice hockey

Elite goaltenders (n not specified in the abstract)

Wrist shots at 5 and 10 m on ice

Quiet eye

Earlier and longer quiet eye on saves

Low

Jedziniak 2025

Handball

40 elite goalkeepers (20 women, 20 men)

Five 7-m throws in real conditions

Fixations, quiet eye

Longer quiet eye on successful interventions

Low

Morris-Binelli 2022

Field hockey

8 international and national goalkeepers (women)

Drag-flick under temporal occlusion, women shooters then men

Transfer of anticipation from one opponent to another

5 of 8 transfer on wide run-ups, none on tight ones

Low

In front of the screen or facing the kicker, the goalkeeper's gaze changes

In handball goalkeepers of three levels, responding with a key press gives better scores than responding with a real movement, but the gaps between levels appear, descriptively, more marked when the body is engaged (Huesmann et al., 2022). A test decoupled from action erases part of the expertise. This is perception-action coupling: we perceive according to what our body allows us to do.

Action capabilities also enter the calculation. Among experienced goalkeepers, the fastest leave later than the slowest (Dicks et al., 2010b). Facing real penalties with feints, run-up information hinders the save, and the authors advise preferring what appears just before the strike (Dicks et al., 2010c). In futsal, at 10 m rather than 6 m, expert goalkeepers save more, leave later and look more at the ball (Navia et al., 2017). In virtual reality, facing curved free kicks, the goalkeeper's hands follow the initial direction of the ball and poorly compensate for the curve (Dessing and Craig, 2010).

The goalkeeper's quiet eye: clear in hockey, debated in football

Study

Sport

Population (n)

Situation

Quiet eye and outcome of the shot

Level of evidence

Panchuk 2006

Ice hockey

Elite goaltenders (n not specified in the abstract)

Wrist shots at 5 and 10 m

On saves, earlier onset (8.6% of the action versus 18.86%) and longer duration (952.3 ms versus 826.1 ms); on the puck or the stick in 70.53% of trials, on the shooter's body in 2.1%

Low

Panchuk 2017

Ice hockey

8 university goaltenders

Deflected, hard-to-predict shots

Late onset: 41% goals versus 22%; short duration: 38% versus 14%

Low

Jedziniak 2025

Handball

40 elite goalkeepers

Real 7-m throws

Longer on successful interventions, by 92 ms (women) and 123 ms (men); men on the throwing arm and the ball, women on the trunk and head

Low

Piras 2011

Football

Intermediate-level goalkeepers (n not specified in the abstract)

Real penalties, instep or inside of the foot

Longer on saves, on the visual pivot; final fixation on the ball beyond about 1,100 ms, goal more likely; 28% saves on the instep versus 12%

Low

Piras 2021

Football

8 intermediate-level goalkeepers

Penalties, start to the left or right

Microsaccades dropping about 1,000 ms before the start, oriented toward the side of the dive; saccades peaking around 500 ms

Low

Savelsbergh 2002

Football

Expert and novice goalkeepers

Filmed penalties

No gaze difference between saved and conceded penalties

Low

Ramsey 2020

Football

5 goalkeepers, 10 saves each (reanalysis)

Real penalties

Variable duration between goalkeepers and within the same goalkeeper; only the location, the ball most often, stays stable

Very low

Franks 2022

Football

Professional goalkeepers (n not specified in the abstract)

One-on-one

Quiet eye on the ball and the visual pivot, different patterns between goalkeepers and from one save to the next

Very low

In ice hockey and handball, the quiet eye lasts longer on saves, and in hockey it also starts earlier, landing on the puck or the stick rather than on the shooter. In football, the picture gets blurred. Piras and Vickers (2011) find a longer quiet eye on saves, but a final fixation that is too long on the ball announces the goal there, whereas Savelsbergh et al. (2002) see no gaze difference between saves and goals. Microsaccades, those small eye movements during fixation, even announce the side of the dive, while ocular saccades peak around 500 ms before the start (Piras et al., 2021). Ramsey et al. (2020), on five goalkeepers, and Franks et al. (2022), in a case study, describe a duration that changes from one goalkeeper and one save to another: they contradict the idea of a common target duration, without proving that it does not exist.

Looking at the same place does not guarantee picking up as much, by the way: handball goalkeepers predict left-handers' 7-m throws less well without looking at them differently (Loffing et al., 2015).

Handball goalkeeper and hockey goalkeeper: 7-m throws, puck and drag-flick

As early as 1979, 34 young ice hockey goaltenders (15.8 years on average) read the shot better when the film showed more frames before impact, better the wrist shot than the slap shot, and better the horizontal plane than the vertical (Salmela and Fiorito, 1979): side before height, as in football. In field hockey, five of eight international or national goalkeepers keep their reading of wide run-ups when going from women to men shooters at the drag-flick, none for tight run-ups (Morris-Binelli et al., 2022). The handball outfield player has their own article, vision and handball. For the water polo goalkeeper, no study on gaze appears in PubMed at the date of this inventory.

Training goalkeeper anticipation: video, cues and kicker preferences

Study

Sport

Population (n)

Published protocol

Measure

Result

Transfer to the field

Level of evidence

Abernethy 2012

Handball (goalkeeper task)

60 novices, 6 equal groups

Explicit rules, verbal cues, verbal cues and color, implicit matching; placebo and control

Anticipation on video, under stress, at 5 months

Explicit, verbal and implicit improve durably; color no better than controls; only implicit holds under stress

Not measured

Moderate to low

Alsharji 2016

Handball

Skilled goalkeepers: 14 trained, 14 placebo, one control group

Perceptual training on video (duration not specified in the abstract)

Direct and feinted 7-m throws

Better than placebo and control; less gain on feints

Not measured

Moderate to low

Mann 2014

Handball

Skilled goalkeepers, two groups (n not specified in the abstract)

Exposure to shooters who prefer one side, or to shooters with no preference

Anticipation of throws

Gain if the shooter keeps their preference, loss if they change it

Not measured

Moderate

Ryu 2013

Football

28 novices (9 guided, 10 unguided, 9 controls)

7 days, half the trials with color cues on the kicker's kinematics or the expert's gaze

Penalty direction on video

Only the guided group improves, gain maintained at 24 h

Not measured

Moderate

Shafizadeh 2012

Football

28 novice junior goalkeepers (14 versus 14)

30 simulated penalty trials, verbal cue on the standing foot

Direction

Cued group more accurate, group by trials interaction not significant

Not measured

Low to moderate

Poulter 2005

Football

Beginners at the task (n not specified in the abstract)

Explicit or implicit learning on occluded penalties; placebo

Prediction, gaze

Placebo improves as much as explicit; only explicit changes gaze

Not measured

Low

Faquin 2024

Football

Goalkeepers and novices (n not specified in the abstract)

One session of videos, implicit or explicit, cut 200 ms before contact

Prediction, reaction time

Accuracy up in both methods, reaction time unchanged

Not measured

Low

Amini Farsani 2023

Football

24 novice goalkeepers aged 14

6 PETTLEP imagery sessions by audio file, versus goalkeeper training alone

12 penalty videos

Difference at post-test (p = 0.004)

Not measured

Low

Dicks 2017

Football

18 novices, two groups

On-field training facing a single kicker, or facing three players of whom two stop about 1.2 m from the ball

Saves on real penalties

More saves on shots without feints for the three-player group

Field, outside matches

Low

Luis-Del Campo 2024

Football

1 goalkeeper under 10

8 on-field sessions of 10 penalties, kickers' tendencies given in advance

Dive start, saves

Start delayed toward contact at retention

Field, single case

Very low

Two scoping reviews from the same group (20 studies on expertise, 13 on training) describe research centered on adult men, in standardized laboratory penalties, little coupled to action, and conclude conditionally: explicit, guided-discovery or implicit approaches could improve anticipation (Huesmann et al., 2025).

The trials mostly compare ways of learning. In 60 novices, the gains hold for five months (Abernethy et al., 2012), a rare duration: the other quantified retention in the table is 24 hours (Ryu et al., 2013), far from a true retention test several weeks later. When a placebo group that watches matches improves as much as the explicit group (Poulter et al., 2005), familiarization with the test weighs heavily. Knowing the kicker's preference helps (Murta et al., 2022; Ji et al., 2023), as long as they remain faithful to it (Mann et al., 2014). The feint remains the hard point: video training gains less there (Alsharji and Wade, 2016), and videos filtered in spatial frequencies remove the drop in anticipation on deceptive shots in goalkeepers tested online, with no training trial to date (Roberts et al., 2026).

The duel seen from the shooter's side: what the goalkeeper provokes

The goalkeeper also acts on the shooter's gaze. Under threat, the shooter fixates them more and recenters the shot; a goalkeeper who waves their arms, or stands imperceptibly off-center on the line, weighs on the choice of side. The shooter poorly exploits a goalkeeper who leaves early, unless the cue is explained to them.

Study

Population (n)

Situation

Result

Level of evidence

Wilson 2009

14 experienced footballers

Penalties under low or high threat

Under threat, faster first fixations and longer gaze on the goalkeeper, shots recentered within their reach

Low

Wood 2010

18 experienced footballers

Goalkeeper still or waving their arms

Moving goalkeeper more distracting, more saves, more central shots

Low

Masters 2007

Shooters (n not specified in the text consulted)

Goalkeeper placed slightly left or right of the center of the goal

The shooter aims more often at the larger side without noticing the offset

Low

Weigelt 2012

Participants (n not specified in the abstract)

Photorealistic images, goalkeeper more or less offset

The offset steers the choice of side, even when not perceived

Low

Timmis 2018

12 shooters facing a goalkeeper

Scored penalty and saved penalty

Saved penalty: quiet eye cut short by an anticipatory fixation on the ball's trajectory, more central shot

Low

van der Kamp 2011

8 low-level shooters, 7 high-level

Goalkeeper projected on a large screen, dive before, during or after the strike

Empty half aimed at chance level on predictive information alone

Low

Núñez 2010

32 expert footballers, 4 groups

Real penalties, goalkeeper cue explained or not

More success with the cue, still at 1 and 7 days

Low

Wood 2017

Shooters (n not specified in the abstract), 3 experiments

Deceptive gaze toward the opposite side

Aiming while deceiving requires a longer quiet eye

Low

Wood 2011

10 trained shooters, 10 placebo

7 weeks of quiet eye training

Half as many saved shots at retention; advantage lost in a shoot-out session

Moderate to low

From video to the save in a match: the link nobody has measured

Near transfer is established: trained on video, the goalkeeper improves on a video of the same type. On real penalties, only two studies: 18 novices trained on the field facing three players, two of whom stop before the strike, save more shots without feints than those trained facing a single kicker (Dicks et al., 2017), and a goalkeeper under ten delays their start when given the shooters' tendencies (Luis-Del Campo et al., 2024). Far transfer, saves in matches, has been measured by no controlled trial in this inventory. Null results weigh just as much: color cues with no effect (Abernethy et al., 2012), unguided group with no progress (Ryu et al., 2013), reaction time unchanged (Faquin et al., 2024), placebo as good as explicit training (Poulter et al., 2005), trained shooter who loses their advantage under pressure (Wood and Wilson, 2011). Because expertise sticks to the sport and the opponent, representative design keeps, in training, the link between what you see and what you do, the same conclusion as for the athlete's neurocognitive training.

Links between the studies

This body of work rests in large part on a few teams. Around Dicks, Button and Davids, the studies take place in real situations and insist on variability. Around Schorer, Loffing and Hagemann, you find a good share of the work on the handball goalkeeper and the 2025 review. At Exeter, Wilson, Wood and Vine studied the shooter under threat.

Study A

Relation

Study B

Ramsey 2020

reanalyzes five goalkeepers from

Dicks 2010a

Button 2011

models over time the gaze studied by

Dicks 2010a

Ramsey 2020, Franks 2022

contradict the idea of a common quiet eye duration drawn from

Panchuk 2006 and 2017, Jedziniak 2025, Piras 2011

Savelsbergh 2002

contrasts with

Piras 2011: no gaze difference between saved and conceded penalties

Woolley 2015

contradicts

Savelsbergh 2005 on the role of the standing leg

Peiyong 2012

qualifies

Savelsbergh 2002: cues before impact unexploited when the start precedes the strike

Huesmann 2022

converges with

Dicks 2010a: gaze and expertise change with coupling to action

Mann 2014

qualifies

Murta 2022, Ji 2023 and Luis-Del Campo 2024: prior information helps if the shooter stays faithful

Dicks 2017

converges with

Luis-Del Campo 2024: only interventions evaluated on real penalties, none in matches

van der Kamp 2011

contrasts with

Núñez 2010 on the shooter's exploitation of the goalkeeper

Weigelt 2012

replicates in images

Masters 2007: the goalkeeper's offset steers the shot without being perceived

Wood 2011

extends

Wilson 2009 and Wood 2010: same laboratory, same threat

Higueras-Herbada 2020

converges with

Salmela 1979: side is read better than height

Abernethy 2012, Loffing 2015, Huesmann 2022

share authors with

Huesmann 2025

The limits of the goalkeeper file, and the missing trial

Established: the expert goalkeeper anticipates better than the novice, reads the side before the height, and their gaze changes depending on whether they respond to a screen or dive. Debated: the weight of the quiet eye, clear in hockey and handball, variable in football, and the role of the standing leg. Extrapolated: that a goalkeeper who improves on a video test saves more penalties on Sunday. No quiet eye duration serves as an individual norm either.

One prediction would settle it. A randomized trial in club goalkeepers compares video anticipation training with an equal volume of real penalties, with saves on real shots, feinted or not, as the criterion, and retention over several weeks. If it finds no difference, the idea that the screen trains the save falls.

Double vision, blur, dizziness: who to consult for a goalkeeper

If your athlete reports double vision, blur that persists, headaches on exertion or dizziness, visual training waits. They first consult an ophthalmologist, then an orthoptist in France, or an optometrist in Switzerland or the United States. LabO RNP is neither medical nor paramedical, and is an addition to a care pathway, never a replacement for it. LabO RNP works with optometrists; the curriculum was built with them.

Why the dive is part of the goalkeeper's perception

The eyes are a point of entry. What LabO RNP teaches is the whole sensorimotor loop: how what the athlete perceives organizes what they do. In the goalkeeper, the gaze does not pick up the same thing when the body stays still or goes into a dive, and their speed of movement sets the moment when they can afford to wait. For the place of the eyes in the warm-up, read our article on oculomotor exercises in the warm-up; for the whole range of visual training families, the map of evidence in sports vision.

Goalkeeper anticipation: five coaches' questions

What does a goalkeeper look at on a penalty?

On video, expert football goalkeepers mainly fixate the kicking leg, the standing leg and the ball, with fewer fixations than novices (Savelsbergh et al., 2002). Facing a real kicker, they look first at his head, then at the ball for roughly the last second before the strike (Button et al., 2011).

Can you train a goalkeeper's anticipation?

On video, yes: guided cues, explicit rules and implicit learning improve prediction, with five months of retention in 60 novices (Abernethy et al., 2012). On real penalties, a field trial in 18 novices (Dicks et al., 2017) and the case of a goalkeeper under ten (Luis-Del Campo et al., 2024) point in the same direction. No controlled trial has measured saves in matches.

Does the quiet eye predict a goalkeeper's saves?

In ice hockey and handball, an earlier or longer quiet eye goes with saves (Panchuk and Vickers, 2006; Jedziniak et al., 2025). In football, results diverge, and quiet eye duration varies from one goalkeeper and one save to another (Ramsey et al., 2020).

Do handball and hockey goalkeepers read the shot as in football?

In part. In ice hockey as in football, the side of the shot is read better than its height (Salmela and Fiorito, 1979). Expertise nevertheless sticks to the opponent: field hockey goalkeepers poorly transfer their reading from women to men shooters (Morris-Binelli et al., 2022), and handball goalkeepers read left-handers less well (Loffing et al., 2015).

Is a visual assessment needed before working on a goalkeeper's gaze?

Yes, as soon as a signal appears: double vision, blur that persists, headaches on exertion or dizziness. The ophthalmologist comes first, then the orthoptist in France or the optometrist in Switzerland and the United States. LabO RNP is neither medical nor paramedical, and is an addition to a care pathway, never a replacement for it.

The goalkeeper reads the kicker with their whole body, and it is in the dive that you check what the screen has taught them.

👉 I want to understand what my goalkeeper perceives before correcting their dive.

By the LabO RNP team


Method. Inventory of November 3, 2026, drawn from the LabO RNP inventory of studies on athlete vision and a complementary PubMed search: 64 studies on the goalkeeper or the penalty identified, 50 analyzed. Excluded: references without an abstract or readable text, studies on the shooter alone, classification of goalkeepers by machine learning, tasks outside shot anticipation. No PubMed study on the water polo goalkeeper's gaze. PMIDs verified on PubMed on November 3, 2026; four non-indexed studies cited by their DOI, verified on Crossref.

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Contents

Goalkeeper anticipation: reading the kicker before contactWhat expert goalkeepers look at when facing a penaltyIn front of the screen or facing the kicker, the goalkeeper's gaze changesThe goalkeeper's quiet eye: clear in hockey, debated in footballHandball goalkeeper and hockey goalkeeper: 7-m throws, puck and drag-flickTraining goalkeeper anticipation: video, cues and kicker preferencesThe duel seen from the shooter's side: what the goalkeeper provokesFrom video to the save in a match: the link nobody has measuredLinks between the studiesThe limits of the goalkeeper file, and the missing trialDouble vision, blur, dizziness: who to consult for a goalkeeperWhy the dive is part of the goalkeeper's perceptionGoalkeeper anticipation: five coaches' questionsSources

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