Can anyone explain the keeper saving with the strong hand instead of one closest to the ball?

Fortitude

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You know that cross-handed thing when leaping high and they go over the top with the wrong hand instead of under and up with the hand that's literally ball-side?

Why do keepers do that? What's the benefit?
 
Fortitude said:
You know that cross-handed thing when leaping high and they go over the top with the wrong hand instead of under and up with the hand that's literally ball-side?

Why do keepers do that? What's the benefit?
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You can reach further and higher if you go with the high hand.
 
I'm no goal keeper but I'm gonna guess it's reaction to use the hand with better eye-hand coordination. You'll always have better coordination with your better hand. Obviously you could make the argument a professional should be as good with both hands.
 
Andersons Dietician said:
You can reach further and higher if you go with the high hand.
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Also, when I used to play in net I'd always favour my right hand just like I'd favour my right foot in passing/shooting even if it resulted in awkward angles. Maybe pros do, too.
 
Trizy said:
I'm no goal keeper but I'm gonna guess it's reaction to use the hand with better eye-hand coordination. You'll always have better coordination with your better hand. Obviously you could make the argument a professional should be as good with both hands.
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You'd think, but many outfield pros favour their stronger foot and awkward situations, too. Even when I made saves with my feet like de Gea, I'd always go with my right leg.
 
Yagami said:
Also, when I used to play in net I'd always favour my right hand just like I'd favour my right foot in passing/shooting even if it resulted in awkward angles. Maybe pros do, too.
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See I only know this because I watched some thing about the United goal keepers training and this was mentioned. If a ball is high and say going to your left and you have to dive for it the positioning of your body means you cover more area and have a higher reach. Going with the nearest hand to the ball you shorten your body and can’t get that hand to as high a point as you would the furthest one away.
I’m sure DeGea does the same going to his right as well in certain situations. This was nothing i’d Ever really thought of before but I noticed in the worldcup that Pickford always went with hand closest t ball so didn’t have the reach, Courtouis and Olak also go far hand.

I think it just comes down to where the ball is and how much distance they are covering, if it’s low and quite near to them and more of a reaction then I would think they go closest hand to the ball.
 
Yagami said:
You'd think, but many outfield pros favour their stronger foot and awkward situations, too. Even when I made saves with my feet like de Gea, I'd always go with my right leg.
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I think Dave almost always goes with his right too.

2 examples that come to mind was his majestic save vs Madrid and the one vs Sanchez (Arsenal away).

Although he made an outrageous save with his left vs Liverpool last season.
 
When I played in goal in my younger days, you were always coached to go with the arm to the side where you are diving. Some kids tried to use their right when diving left because it was their stronger arm, but got nowhere near the same sort of reach.

I predict a lot has changed since then. Goalkeepers don't look like Kevin Pressman and Neville Southall anymore, for a start. Athleticism and agility have improved massively. Guys like De Gea are crazy agile, and when he makes those dives with the 'wrong' hand, he sort of twists in the air to get that extra leverage. The spring off the ground shouldn't be underestimated either. It depends on the body composition of the individual and what they're capable of, but it does seem to becoming more common now that goalkeepers tend to be a lot more agile than years gone by.
 
If the keeper jumps to his left but the ball goes high then it will often be more effective to use his right hand than the left.
 
De gea save against mata was right handed to his left im pretty sure
 
Same reason players sometimes use the outside of their boot instead of just using their weaker foot. They prefer it and for some situations its better.
 
You can reach further, but, and this is much more important, it looks amazing.
 
It's a natural movement and also trying to make the save with the other hand would result in injuries when landing.
 
I think it has something to do with him falling afterwards as well. If you jump with the hand that's under you, it will be pretty hard to reposition and you will fall on it, increasing the risk of injury.

Also, when you jump with the opposite hand you will be able to gain more momentum when pushing the ball away.
 
Looking at some stills and a highlight video of De Gea, I notice he doesn't seem to do it when he dives to his right. I can't seem to see one anyway. When he goes right, he uses the right arm, even when going high. High to his left he also uses the right arm. Low to the left, he uses his left. For him it may just be preferential to use the right arm, but that mid-air twist he does certainly buys him a little bit of extra distance.
 
I imagine it's because you are mostly saving the ball in front of you, and going with the hand that gives you further reach.
 
Having played in the position for 40 years, sometimes what looks the wrong hand is the correct one: there are times that one hand might look nerer the ball but can't actually reach it due to the angle is't moving at, so the "top" hand come in
 
Oliver Kahn was the GOAT doing these kind of saves.
 
Fortitude said:
How? You're crossing your own body and thus shortening range. If I'm being thick, please explain because I've wondered this for the longest time, but never investigated .
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But if you think of the shape of your body in a dive, so if you are diving to the left in the top corner sort of area if you go and try and reach for that with your left hand your left arm is at a lower point than your right, your body going that way and trying to reach high is also going to curve your body so you are shortening your range you can cover. Going with your right your arm is at a higher point in the dive so you aren’t shortening your length, your body also would have a curve allowing you to reach further.

It’s really weird but if you just think about it, it makes total sense. As I said earlier the only reason I know about this as I saw some video of our goalkeeper coach talking about the goal keeper training and putting DeGea and that through the motions and he explained there why you go with the high hand and who am I to argue with Eric Steele and DeGea :lol:
 
If the shot is nearby keepers will generally go for the nearest limb, but if its one that requires diving, particularly high, then its the opposite hand, because when you're diving, that's the one that's higher.
 
Fortitude said:
How? You're crossing your own body and thus shortening range. If I'm being thick, please explain because I've wondered this for the longest time, but never investigated .
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It has to do with your footwork and the way you leap. If you are exploding off of two feet in the direction you leap with that leading arm then you can't get the same amount of height and hang time as if you plant off the same set of footwork and jump rotating your torso. The explosion out of your legs and hips, while twisting and reaching allows you to reach further with your opposite arm at the top of the arc and also sustain a longer and more sustained arc while on the downward drop.

I've actually seen sports science on this somewhere, but I can't remember where I'll see if I can dig it out.
 
It's not really a conscious decision. They just instinctively do what their brain tells them is required to keep the ball out.
 
We've had this talk on here some time ago when one pal wanted to convince everyone that it's stupid as 'you don't reach that far with your wrong hard across the body' or something.
 
You can't reach further in absolute terms on a left-right axis if saving it with your top hand. Your left had diving to the left, right hand to the right will always give maximum reach if that's the only consideration.

However, if the shot is high there's a certain point where you can reach higher for further saving it with your right hand diving to the left and vice versa. If you dive to your left, your left hand is nearer the ground than your right is so your right can be the better choice at times if it's up high.

You could get all scientific and draw an arc where the reach of both arms intersect and deduce which arm would be the best to go for the ball with on any particular shot. That would depend on the individual taking into account height, arm length and jumping ability.
 
Fortitude said:
You know that cross-handed thing when leaping high and they go over the top with the wrong hand instead of under and up with the hand that's literally ball-side?

Why do keepers do that? What's the benefit?
Click to expand...
Probably has a lot to do with the confidence, balance, and strength. Similar to a player preferring to use their prominent foot when taking a shot by taking another touch to switch feet before doing so.
 
Chipper said:
You can't reach further in absolute terms on a left-right axis if saving it with your top hand. Your left had diving to the left, right hand to the right will always give maximum reach if that's the only consideration.

However, if the shot is high there's a certain point where you can reach higher for further saving it with your right hand diving to the left and vice versa. If you dive to your left, your left hand is nearer the ground than your right is so your right can be the better choice at times if it's up high.

You could get all scientific and draw an arc where the reach of both arms intersect and deduce which arm would be the best to go for the ball with on any particular shot. That would depend on the individual taking into account height, arm length and jumping ability.
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The boring but correct answer.

Always find it weird when pundits talk about this “wrong hand” stuff when the physics is so simple. To save shots in the upper half of the goal, the “wrong” hand is usually the one attached to the shoulder closer to the ground.
 
It depends on how high and far the ball is. If it is far to the left and very high, it will be difficult to use the left hand because the goalkeeper will likely get under the ball. So normally, goalkeepers initially go with the left hand for length and then throw across the right hand for height.
 
Good read, this. I've never played keeper properly in my life so I've not even thought of body mechanics etc.

I guess I'll try and get myself out of the mentality that keeper's are making poor decisions by going for the ball with their wrong hand.

Funny the contrast between outfield and keeper in this context.
 
If the shot is looping over my head to the far corner then (i think) I’m using my hand to go over my head. If its a driven shot making its way under the bar and i have to use my feet quickly i am (probably) using my other hand to go straight up.
 
Saving with the right/wrong hand is linked the potential explosive range/momentum over time — the right hand gives you greater reach up to a certain point in low to mid vertical range — which is why goalkeepers never dive with the wrong hand for relatively comfortable shots where their body isn't fully extended or when they need more finesse/control, however the contralateral (wrong) hand provides greater range and momentum at the point of impact when combined with the extension of your contorted body via a power leap using the wrong leg/hip to launch.

There's a tipping point in all of this if you plot the respective ranges and times and velocities on a graph — essentially, the more desperately you dive while crossing over with your wrong side the greater range/momentum your wrong hand provides to punch/block/parry the ball along the axis (imitating the explosive starting phases of a sprinting motion), and a lot of keepers are conditioned to almost instantaneously deduce which hand they need to dive with.

Further reading:
Characteristics of force exerted by soccer goalkeepers during diving motion

Keita Matsukura, Takeshi Asai

They were asked to dive toward balls set at 3 different heights located a short or a long distance from the GK. By examining the GKs' diving motions, we calculated the ground reaction force (GRF), joint angular velocity, and joint torque. The results indicated that the magnitude of the GRF under both legs and the direction of the GRF under the ball-side (BS) leg differed with the ball height. We also found that a higher dive by the GKs corresponded to a larger counter-movement of the contralateral-side (CS) leg and a higher stopping power of the BS leg in order to increase the vertical velocity, and more exertion of extension torques at the hip and foot for takeoff compared to those in lower dives. Furthermore, a lower dive of the GKs corresponded to a larger angular impulse of the BS hip adduction after the BS leg touched the ground. These findings suggest that during the takeoff part of the diving motion of a GK, depending on the ball height, the CS leg controls the magnitude of power and the BS leg controls both the magnitude and the direction of power in order for the GK to dive directly towards the ball.
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https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jjpehss/58/1/58_12053/_article/-char/en
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30036138
https://www.researchgate.net/public...haracteristics_for_elite_football_goalkeepers
 
I always assumed because it is a better motion for pushing the ball away, thereby ensuring a save doesn't bounce back into a dangerous area.
 
Fortitude said:
How? You're crossing your own body and thus shortening range. If I'm being thick, please explain because I've wondered this for the longest time, but never investigated .
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Draw 2 lines( representing left and right hands) going up and then curve them both towards left.
Now tell me which hand has higher reach?
 
So I am seeing a lot more under arm than over for top corner saves in this tournament. What’s that about?
 
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