England women’s Euro 2025 penalty hero Hannah Hampton defies eye condition with study and strategy | Science

HAnnah Hampton had already saved a penalty during the shooting against Spain at Euro 2025 when Aitana Bonmatí, the consecutive winner of the female golden ball, placed the ball on the spot and fell, taking a moment before the strike. Bonmatí struck the dur ball and left, but Hampton was there, his arms stretched, to block the shot with both hands.

“Better pens than the last time, let’s be honest!” Hampton said that after the match, a reference to the more painful shooting against Sweden in the quarter -finals which went to sudden death before England prevails. Hampton also saved two penalties this time.

It was an extraordinary tournament for Hampton, the Chelsea player who only became the first goalkeeper of England in May after the retirement of Mary Earps from international football. Hampton’s penalty economy record may be even more impressive since the doctors told her that because of an eye condition, she could not play football.

Hampton was born with Strabismus, or a fold, which means that when she looked at an object with one eye, the other looked in another direction. It was serious enough for her to have three operations at the age of three to correct the maidening. The operation was not a complete success: Hampton told newspaper I in 2022 how she would try to pour juice into a drink and miss if she did not hold it.

During a medical examination at Stoke City, when Hampton was 12 years old, doctors diagnosed another problem. It had altered the perception of depth, which means that it has trouble saying how far the objects are. It is often seen in patients with strabismus.

“The perception of depth requires that our eyes are aligned, really from birth, and also so that the visual entry of both eyes is equal,” explains Professor Jugnoo Rahi, an ophthalmic epidemiologist at UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health. If children have poorly aligned eyes, the brain suppresses the entrance to an eye because the brain cannot face the double vision. “If it happens for a long time, if you cannot align your eyes with surgery, for example, you get a constantly reduced vision in one eye,” she adds.

But children who have a perception of limited depth grow by using other clues, the most obvious being that objects seem smaller when they are more distant. It is often the finest perception tasks that are the most affected – moreover by more a needle than to intercept excess football. “People learn,” says Rahi, “and I suspect that if you are also particularly talented and your look-of-one coordination is good, you could be better able to overcome this.”

From Stoke City to Aston Villa and Chelsea, Hampton has certainly learned. After countless bloody noses and broken fingers to stop the ball too close to her face, or have her hands in bad position, she made a conscious effort to modify her position of the hand. He did not stop all the blood: in addition to time against Sweden, a collision left him absorbent tissues in his right nostril.

Hampton could also compensate for other ways. By putting aside the notes she had recorded on her arm before the shooting with Spain – evidence that she had made her homework – Hampton could be finely listening to the subtle clues with penalty takers. And given the fraction of a second, a goalkeeper must respond once the ball is kicked, they could be more important than the perception of depth.

In his book, The Penalty Kick: The Psychology of Success, Professor Daniel Memmert at the German Sports University in Cologne dissects art science. The movement of the body is particularly revealing, he said. When an attacker on a right foot targets the left corner, support leg, hip and upper body all start to turn to the left. If the goalkeeper looks, “they can anticipate the direction of the penalty,” he said. “It is extremely difficult not to move the members like this if you go to the left corner, and the good goalkeepers have this image.” Often these clues are unconsciously picked up, he adds.

And then there are the tips that the guards can play. When the guards are big – throwing their arms in the shape of a y – the attackers tend to get closer to the goalkeeper. But it is not the only tactic. “One of the most important factors is that you make the attacker feel that one of the corners has a little more space,” explains Memmert.

If the goalkeeper is held slightly in the center – more than 10 cm on the left or right – a penalty lessee who will always decide will often shoot on the side with a little more space. Even if they cannot perceive additional space. If a goalkeeper knows that an attacker promotes one side, making a little more space can push them more in this direction, giving the goalkeeper an advantage. “This is the best thing that a goalkeeper can do because the attacker will never know if the goalkeeper is held exactly in the middle or not,” explains Memmert.