Goalkeeping in the soccer penalty kick: It is time we take affordance-based control seriously!

The goalkeeper’s difficulty in the soccer penalty kick originates from the extreme spatiotemporal constraints of the situation. The present review claims that the current understanding is biased toward attributing a goalkeeper’s success in saving a penalty kick to perceptual-cognitive skill. To investigate the goalkeeper’s skill, researchers have often adopted video tasks. In doing so, they studied perceptual skill in isolation from action. We use affordance-based control theory to propose an alternative understanding and research methodology. We argue that goalkeepers in the penalty kick situation should regulate their actions in ways that sustain the perception of stoppability. To capture this, we outline the building blocks for a required lateral velocity model, in which the goalkeepers’ required actions are scaled to their maximum capabilities. In doing so, we provide new directions for research.