Manchester United won the Carling Cup, which is primarily a little-valued “bonus” trophy handed out in England, yesterday. Great, good for them; go for the quadruple for all I care. More important for us here, however, is the revelation that the team’s goalkeeper, Ben Foster, used an iPod to help his team win.
Foster used the iPod to study how the opposing team, Tottenham Hotspur, takes penalty kicks. How? United’s goalkeeping coach loaded up an iPod filled with video of Tottenham players taking penalties. “This guy usually kicks the ball low and to the right, that guy usually kicks it high and left.” That type of thing.
So, right before the penalty kicks—the game ended in a 0-0 draw, leading to penalties—Foster looked at the iPod one last time. Neat!
I wonder if this will be a trend, teams using portable devices to study up on the opposition, up to and including using them right on the pitch.
And since we’re on the topic of goalkeeping, here’s a compilation of then-Liverpool goalkeeper Jerzy Dudek’s heroics in Istanbul. Heroic, of course, in the sporting sense of the word; it’s not like he saved a cat from a tree or anything.