I played GK about a year ago. Some guy decided to do a preety powerful shot at like 20 yards away. I defended it. 5 minutes later a ambulance is carrying me to the ER cause of 2 fractured bones at my wrist, and i had to wear a cast for a month.
Now i watch some matches of football, with GK’s defending shots from like half a meter away going at like 80km/h with absolutely no harm or anything.
I get adrenaline is a big painkiller and i’m not the most in-shape guy, while they are athlethes, but you’re telling me a shot from 20 yards broke my hand and yet a shot from 10 centimeters has no efect on them?
In: 531
There are many reasons they don’t break their wrists very often, from conditioning over the years and years of training, many keepers tape their wrist and use techniques catching the shots higher up on the palm to avoid taking the hit straight onto the heel of the palm. And gloves take a bit of the initial force as well, but not that much to be honest.
But the biggest thing is definitely technique, small things adding up to a safe shot stoppage, cupped hands, higher impact placement on the palm, slightly bent wrists to defuse the force angle of the shot.
There are quite a few videos on YouTube that covers goalkeeping catching techniques, and you can kind of get how they help with safety when you look at how they move and catch.
With all of this said, some do still actually break their wrists, seasoned goalkeepers.
And I have broken the wrist of two of my goalies back when I played (I did have a pretty mean shot to be fair) and they were both 10-15 maybe 20 years into goalkeeping at that time.
So luck also has an influence, all it takes is a bad catch and you get injured, same as in every sport, losing focus for a second could spell broken bones
Latest Answers