Dr Robert wrote:I'm with you budget, the keeper is definitely getting there, if he dives. As I've said, he may not have saved it, as it may have been a weak hand. Gotta try though. Every keeper in the world would same the same as well, I would think.
Say that shot is at normal pace, about 60mph(conservative estimate), which I think is 26 meters per second, if the ball at that point is about 10 yards, give or take 9 meters away from goal, this means at the point of that picture being taken the time in which the keeper has to close down the space is 0.34 seconds.. after that the ball has crossed the line.
From the picture, I would guess the keeper is about 2 to 2.5 meters away from the goal edge, which means he is 5 to 5.5 meters away from the point the ball crosses the line. The keeper is 1.89 meters....his arms probably add a meter when fully stretched. So we can subtract the keepers height from the space he needs to close down, and give him an extra meter for the height of his outstretched arms, leaving him about 2-2.5 meters.
We will use the 2.5 meters because lets be fair, he doesn't travel sideways instantaneously, he loses time in contracting muscles to do it, so the above calculations are highly favourable to him. In order to close down the ball he has to travel 2.5 meters in 0.34 seconds. This equates to a speed of 7.35 Ms, or approximately 16.5 miles per hour.
When Usain Bolt ran his 9.58sec 100 meter record, he ran the first 20 meters at slightly less than this speed, accelerating quite sharply after the first few meters. I think he took about a second to get to 4 or 5 meters, that's how slow the reaction is. His reaction time was also 0.15 seconds, the time it took for his brain to tell his muscles to kick in and for them to react (as the goalie would if he were to dive)
The fastest man in the world couldn't have got to the ball in time, the Nigeria goal keeper had not a zip of a chance.
