Half-blind yet in the final: this is the fairytale story of the Euros

Yahoo

4 days ago

Soccer has always been about stories that are bigger than the game itself. Stories where a perceived weakness becomes a strength. Hannah Hampton is writing one such story.
She is the number one in the English goal and is in the European Championship final today. And that despite having a handicap that should actually be a knockout criterion for her position.
Because: She can't gauge distances. The 24-year-old was born with a visual impairment, had three eye surgeries, and still suffers from it today.
For a goalkeeper, that's roughly equivalent to asking a striker to score a goal with their eyes closed.
Hampton defies the doctors!
The doctors' prognosis was clear early on: professional sports were impossible for her. But Hampton didn't want to accept that. Instead of withdrawing, she developed her own unique goalkeeper style - one based on feeling, timing, and unbridled willpower. "I basically have no depth perception," she once said in ex-keeper Ben Foster's podcast. "That's why I can't gauge distances."
What sounds like a disadvantage made her an exceptional player. Hampton had to reprogram her body: she took countless hits to the face, broke fingers, got bloody noses - and learned from them. "I had to adjust my position so that my hands are where the ball is," she said.
Even in everyday life, she still feels the effects today. Pouring a simple glass of water becomes a challenge - "if I don't hold onto it, I'll miss it".
The best goalkeeper of this European Championship?
But in the goal of English champion FC Chelsea and the national team, she now stands like a wall. In 22 league games, Hampton played 13 times without conceding a goal. Anyone who watches her would never think that someone with a congenital visual impairment is standing between the posts.
"It's a really remarkable story," says former professional goalkeeper Matt Pyzdrowski. "At this level, everything is so fast. And she's just keeping up."
In the ongoing European Championship in Switzerland, Hampton is the regular goalkeeper for the first time at a major tournament. With impressive calmness, strong reflexes, and an aura that gives her team security, she led the Lionesses directly to the final.
The woman from Birmingham has a real case for being the best goalkeeper of this European Championship. Not least in the quarterfinals against Sweden, she became a heroine in the penalty shootout.
On Sunday evening, Hampton can crown her fairy-tale story. In the rematch of the 2023 World Cup final, she wants to drive the highly talented Spanish women to white heat and help the motherland of soccer to its second European Championship title in a row after 2022.
So, you don't have to have perfect vision to have a great career and be in the final of the Women's European Championship today.
This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇩🇪 here.
📸 MIGUEL MEDINA - AFP or licensors