Goalkeeper’s position for defending short range shots

The purpose of the study was to analyze and quantify the ability of the goalkeeper while defending shots from left and right sides of penalty area or the goal area, which frequently occurs in an actual game situation. In other words, the study aimed at verifying the reaction ability of the goalkeeper to defend goals in two different defense positions across a 3 m width area without performing dives. Eleven male goalkeepers from a university soccer league participated in the study. The goalkeepers were assigned to react to a specific target point, i.e. high, middle, low, left and right in response to the LED signal positioned at the front. Three-dimensional motion analysis system was used to perform kinematical analysis through which variables such as the approach time of reaching specific target points and the movement used to cover the defensive area were observed. In results, no significant differences were observed in approach time of the hand to the target point in both defense positions, i.e. Type-A ...