Meet the university professor changing goalkeeping science with VR

The science of goalkeeping is an intricate art. Top-level shot-stoppers must be brave, have excellent reactions and an anticipation that is second to none.

But how do you train these skills to become a better goalkeeper? While players can't always step out onto the training pitch to be tested by the best strikers in the game, Professor Cathy Craig, a world-renowned researcher in movement science from Northern Ireland, may have one answer as to how goalkeepers can hone their skills away from the training pitch - and it comes in form of her virtual reality game CleanSheet.

'If you think, how do you get better as a goalkeeper, you need the opportunity to practice against the best strikers,’ the Ulster University professor, who has studied the movement characteristics of elite players like Kaka and Andriy Shevchenko, says.

‘Or that ability to pull off those saves because it's about reading the flight of the football to get into the right place at the right time. You have to be able to make those split-second decisions, to do that. You have to have that variability in exercise.'

'Essentially, it is about service. It's about having quality service every time,’ she explains. 

Professor Craig is one of the forerunners in developing virtual reality software that can help athletes hone their skills not just on the training pitch, but at home, in their garden or wherever they have access to a Meta Quest 3.

Her software, CleanSheet - which can be downloaded from the Meta Store - is a football simulation which users can download onto their Meta Quest 3 and allows players to test themselves against a variety of game modes which can recreate certain scenarios from a match. 

In a nutshell, fans can put themselves in the position of facing off against a free-kick from James Ward-Prowse or a one-on-one against Cristiano Ronaldo in their living room or back garden.

The software, which is developed by INCISIV, has also caught the attention of some top pros, with England and Barcelona goalkeeper Ellie Roebuck putting the game to the test at an event last week.

Meanwhile, Union SG and Luxembourg international, Anthony Moris, is also using the technology to help him improve his skills.

And the benefits of this VR system are plain to see. A user can improve their technique, fitness and reaction times all while using the software.

‘CleanSheet VR is really about giving goalkeepers that opportunity to get their 10,000 hours of practice in at home, on an indoor facility or wherever it is they want,’ the Ulster University professor says.

‘What it does is simulate all different types of ball trajectories and shots on goal. And then what we can do is we can manipulate that. We can change the level of difficulty. It can adapt to whoever the end user is.’

Professor Craig, a CEO and co-founder of INCISIV, has conducted extensive research with elite-level clubs like AC Milan in the past. She has also worked in collaboration with adidas while the brand were producing their iconic Predator boots and has used the research she has collated to develop CleanSheet. 

It was her initial curiosity over how players like David Beckham put spin on the ball when they take a free-kick that led her to developing CleanSheet.

'It was around the time of the 1998 World Cup and you had players like David Beckham and Roberto Carlos, all of them doing the curve free kicks,' she says. 'For me, as a psychologist, I was curious about why they put spin on the ball? Is a ball with spin more difficult to anticipate? If so, why?

'People often describe goalkeeping as very reactionary, and part of it is. But there is an anticipatory aspect to it that's really, really important as well. So what happened then was, I needed a technology that would allow me to simulate different types of shot.'

Professor Craig reveals that was where she came across virtual reality. But back then the technology was 'extremely rudimentary', as she describes it, with machines costing nearly €10,000 (£8,426).

But developments in virtual reality over the past 20 years have made the software more accessible - meaning professional athletes, researchers and those just looking to enjoy playing with systems like CleanSheet can do so with the Meta Quest 3.

'After that, I needed to test players. So we had different simulations of types of ball with spin, and that's where a collaboration with adidas innovation team football came in.

'They said to me, "Oh, we're really interested in this", because they were making the predator boot at the time. That was supposed to allow you to put more spin on the ball. So I was basically answering the question: if you can put spin on a ball, could you increase your chance of scoring a goal? Because it's more difficult for a goalkeeper to stop.'

She continues: 'We went to AC Milan, Marseille, Schalke and Bayer Leverkusen, and I was able to test the players there, like Kaka, Shevchenko - outfield players and goalkeepers - with this very basic headset of mine.'

Her findings gave her a range of incredibly insightful data that has allowed Professor Craig to go on to work in other sports too, including golf, cricket and even conduct research into Parkinson's disease.

It would also lead her to develop CleanSheet, a virtual reality game she believes can help coaches identify future talents, thanks to the detailed information the system uses to collect data about the ball flight, its speed and a goalkeeper's positioning.

'What this allows us to create is point systems and leaderboards that are based more on, I suppose, talent identification. So for me, what's super exciting is to be able to know where these people are - anywhere in the world - who have true talent.

'I've often asked goalkeeping coaches: "How do you know that this player is your best goalkeeper?" Where do they get to really test them? The thing I can do is give them all exactly the same test and measure how they perform. And that's something you can't really do with any other technology.'

The game itself has proved to be a massive hit, with over 150,000 people having used CleanSheet - a figure that is continuing to grow.

Professor Craig believes that 'mixed reality' is the future of the sport and will allow players to 'translate their skills from the virtual reality system' to the playing field. She hopes that INCISIV can collaborate with goalkeeping coaches in the future to develop the software further.

'We would love to work with really forward-thinking goalkeeping coaches who get it and who can see the potential.

'For me, I get super excited when we go to an indoor 3G pitch and we use the mixed reality because you can then see the ground, you can see the post. But you've got avatars shooting balls at you, you're diving and you're doing lots of things.

'For me, mixed reality will be the future of sport,' she adds.

Professor Craig also believes that virtual reality can also change the way Esports are played, with competitors able to take part in arena-style events like Gladiator.

'I'd love Esports to be everybody lined up in a virtual room, or in a room trying to pull off these saves [with] people in the arena cheering them, [similar to] those reality TV shows when people are trying to go through that circuit and run the gauntlet. A bit like that show Gladiator.'

You can download and test your goalkeeping skills with CleenSheet from the Meta store here today.