Comments on: The advice to “keep your eye on the ball” is literally impossible https://www.isegoria.net/2021/03/the-advice-to-keep-your-eye-on-the-ball-is-literally-impossible/ From the ancient Greek for equality in freedom of speech; an eclectic mix of thoughts, large and small Wed, 22 Apr 2026 02:09:17 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.6.1 By: Isegoria https://www.isegoria.net/2021/03/the-advice-to-keep-your-eye-on-the-ball-is-literally-impossible/comment-page-1/#comment-3371810 Isegoria Tue, 09 Mar 2021 14:46:19 +0000 https://www.isegoria.net/?p=47737#comment-3371810 Even with the lights out, Ronaldo is much better looking than the amateur.

]]> By: Grasspunk https://www.isegoria.net/2021/03/the-advice-to-keep-your-eye-on-the-ball-is-literally-impossible/comment-page-1/#comment-3371787 Grasspunk Tue, 09 Mar 2021 09:33:29 +0000 https://www.isegoria.net/?p=47737#comment-3371787 Reminds me of the testing they did with Cristiano Ronaldo where they kicked a ball to him and turned off the lights and he had to score in the dark, which he did even when they turned off the lights before the ball was kicked. I cued up the link to the relevant section.

https://youtu.be/t03LHpeWnpA?t=329

]]> By: Kirk https://www.isegoria.net/2021/03/the-advice-to-keep-your-eye-on-the-ball-is-literally-impossible/comment-page-1/#comment-3371727 Kirk Mon, 08 Mar 2021 22:00:18 +0000 https://www.isegoria.net/?p=47737#comment-3371727 I don’t know what it takes to be a superstar-level player at anything in particular, but I do know that the people who are have something I don’t, and that even when they try to describe it, they can’t do it in terms I find at all understandable.

I used to work with a guy from Guyana who spent his weekends playing “futbol”, or as we benighted colonials call it, “soccer”. This guy was scary-good as a goalkeeper, because you’d watch him and you’d get the general impression that he had eyes on the back of his head, and he knew what the ball was going to do before it did it. I watched him reach out and catch a ball, once, where he was completely blocked from being able to see it by the general scrum of assholes around his goal net–All you saw was this hand reach out of the mass, and grab the ball. There was no damn way he could have seen that thing coming, or even known that the damn thing was being kicked, and… Yet… There it was, in his hands, and getting rocketed back down the field from his goal before anyone realized what the hell was going on.

I asked him how on God’s green earth he’d been able to do that, and he just looked puzzled for a minute and then said something to the effect that he’d just known the ball was coming, and reached for it. The whole thing was done so smoothly that everyone else around the goal failed to realize he’d even gained control of the ball before he sent it winging back down the field–It was that fast and smooth. Even his own team was standing around going “What just happened here…?”.

ESP? You tell me. That was one of the more surreal sporting experiences I’ve ever had, and I think you would find that an awful lot of “star athletes” can do the same damn thing. How, I’ve no idea.

]]> By: Bob Sykes https://www.isegoria.net/2021/03/the-advice-to-keep-your-eye-on-the-ball-is-literally-impossible/comment-page-1/#comment-3371718 Bob Sykes Mon, 08 Mar 2021 21:15:20 +0000 https://www.isegoria.net/?p=47737#comment-3371718 Ted Williams claimed he could see the stitches on the ball after it was thrown.

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