Thaindian News

Sydney, April 7 (ANI): Football goalies often make the most spectacular dives during a penalty shoot-out because of peer pressure, a research has found.

Researchers watched hundreds of penalty shoot-outs only to conclude that the goalkeepers would rather prefer standing still at the goalmouth but dive so that their coach, fans and teammates believe they’ve done their best in the game.

It was found that goalkeepers were likely to save one out of every three penalties if they remained still, while goalies diving to their left or right would have a chance of below 15 percent of making a successful stop.

However, the study conducted by Michael Bar-Eli, Ofer H Azar and Yotam Lurie, from Ben-Gurion University, demonstrated that the goalie remained relatively motionless in only 6 percent of all penalty kicks he faced, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.

Interviews with goalkeepers revealed that many felt pressured to ‘look’ like they were doing ’something’.

Goalies also felt it looked as if they had not tried at all to deflect the ball when they stayed still in the centre and the ball beat them to the goal.

The study group discovered that the best thing for a penalty taker was to aim for the highest third of the net, since no goalkeepers in the sample footage were able to stop the ball after such a shot.

Low shots had a 57 percent chance of being stopped, while goalies had a 30 percent chance to deflect mid-height shots.

The research appeared in the journal Progress in Brain Research about a year ago. (ANI)