Guarding the goal with one eye: Hannah Hampton s counterattack path

If there is a disabled player playing football in the five major leagues now, then you will definitely think it is this joke. It is already very difficult for a disabled player to gain a foothold in a normal football league, let alone the five major leagues with superstars. However, the protagonist of this article is a god who broke the "impossibility" - Hannah Hampton.

The birth defect made the doctor determine that she could not become a football player

Hampton was born with strabismus, unable to align her eyes, and underwent three surgeries before the age of three but failed to fully correct it. At the age of 11, the doctor further diagnosed her with deep perception disorder. Under this disease, Hampton should not have become a professional athlete. After all, almost all non-disabled sports require you to have good vision. Hampton's disease prevents her from completing distance measurement with her eyes. So after she diagnosed this symptom, the doctor frankly said: "It is impossible to become a professional player, especially not suitable to be a goalkeeper."

In her world, it is difficult to accurately judge even if you basically leave and keep balance and grasp things. If you don't know what this feeling looks like, you can try to close one eye from now on to experience the distance between grasping things and feeling them. So what if you are a goalkeeper at this time?

debuted as a forward, laying the groundwork for the future

Hampton moved to Spain when she was five years old. It was the Spanish football atmosphere that made Hampton fall in love with the sport of football. She was the only girl in the team, but the most talented player in the team, so she soon received an invitation from Villarreal's youth training team. Hampton assigned the position of the youth training coaching team was the striker, and Hampton started her football career here. In her five years of football career in Spain, she learned the Spanish football style and had excellent passing and receiving skills.

Because Hampton is an Englishman, in order to coach his teammates and coaches, Hampton is also actively learning various foreign languages, including Spanish, French and even sign language. The young Hampton understood the feeling of loneliness very well, which also allowed her to grow up faster. Even though she suffered from deep perception obstacles, Hampton still did not give up on football. Even though she fell all over the training ground, the drops of blood and sweat had become her labels. She no longer remembered how many times she fell, but this did not prevent her from continuing to train hard.

An accident transformed her into goalkeeper

When she was 10 years old, Hampton's family returned to England to live. At the age of 12, she was injured by the goalkeeper's warm-up in an U12 game. She temporarily played a goalkeeper, but she performed amazingly and was even spotted by the English youth training coach on the spot. Although she was later called up as both the England striker and goalkeeper, she eventually chose to focus on the goalkeeper position.

But Hampton, who had just transformed into a goalkeeper, was confused. Facing the balls that were running towards her but not far away, Hampton was so at a loss. The only thing she could do was watch the ball fly to her body helplessly, because she really didn't know when to make a suitable save. She also broke her fingers, had nose bleeding, concussions, and could not count the bruises in her body. The scars became the most familiar thing for young Hampton. But Hampton's behavior made the youth training coach mistakenly think that her courage as a goalkeeper and took special care of her.

Hampton also gradually learned to close one eye to train and let physical experience make up for the visual deviation. But it was also at this time that her deep perception obstacle was detected. Everyone told her that she could not become a qualified goalkeeper, but Hampton knew that she could not save the ball, so why couldn't it?

Due to the absence of vision, many times the experience of losing can only be learned and summarized by Hampton itself. The coach could not teach her at all. Fortunately, Hampton is a natural football player. Her football quotient and her physical experience summary have given her a miracle of breaking the "impossible".

How Hampton became England's strongest female goalkeeper

Hampton signed with Birmingham when she turned 17. With Hampton's outstanding performance, it is a pity that the 2021 Birmingham Club refused to pay the women's football salary, and Hampton also switched to Villa. In the first year of joining Villa, Hampton completed 86 saves, which was much higher than other women's football goalkeepers in the same season. What's more, Hampton still has vision impairment. For Hampton, her efforts have finally achieved results. It was in 2022 that the England national team also sent an invitation to Hampton, although there were some small episodes in Hampton's career during 2022, allowing her to switch to Chelsea. As a goalkeeper, what makes her better than other goalkeepers is that she is not only a goalkeeper, but also an outfield player with good ability to play both feet. Her young Spanish forward experience has made her a first-class scavenger goalkeeper. She is often the initiator of the backcourt offense. It is this characteristic that makes her the strongest female goalkeeper in England. If you want to say that Hampton is afraid of anything, maybe only the Arsenal women's football scooter makes her helpless. After switching to Chelsea, Hampton only took one game to jump from the fourth goalkeeper to the first goalkeeper. Hampton's counterattack path continues. In the quarter-finals of the 2025 Women's Football European Cup, Hampton saved two penalty kicks with a nose injury and bleeding, helping England eliminate Sweden in the penalty shootout, and was named the best in the game. The story of Hampton is not only a counterattack model for the sports world, but also shows the possibility of people with disabilities in top competition. Her next goal is to lead England to defend the European Cup and continue to rewrite the definition of "impossible" with actions.