Wearing red jersey can improve goalkeeper’s chance of saving penalty

April 16th, 2010 - 6:06 pm ICT by ANI  

London, April 16(ANI): According to sports psychologists, goalkeepers can increase their chances of saving penalty kicks by wearing red jerseys.

A new study found that players missed spot-kicks almost twice as often when the keeper wore a red shirt compared with a blue, green or yellow one.

The conclusion was reached after 40 footballers took dozens of penalties, over a week, against a single keeper who changed his strip between the four colours.

The fewest goals by far were scored when the keeper wore red, at 54 per cent of kicks. The success rates against yellow, blue and green were 69, 72 and 75 per cent respectively.

Iain Greenlees, reader in sports psychology at the University of Chichester, said that in a highly stressed situation, people could easily be distracted by “threatening stimuli”, such as colour.

“We have evolved to strongly associate red with danger, dominance or anger and at times of great stress we pay more attention to threats in our environment,” Timesonline quoted him as saying.

He added: “It is too late to change the whole goalkeeping strip to red but the manager should think about integrating red into part of the kit, in the gloves or boots for example.” (ANI)

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