The 2024 Paris Paralympics have shown the general public how vast, extraordinary, and too often ignored the world of sports for people with disabilities is. Among the events that has garnered the most interest is blind soccer, or more precisely, B1 5-a-side soccer, which demonstrates how visually impaired athletes are able to use extraordinary spatial awareness, as well as speed, precision, and technique. There is a distinction here between B2/3 5-a-side soccer, which includes visually impaired people, and B1 soccer, in which most of the players are completely blind: The Paralympics includes only the latter. B1 soccer is played on a rectangular field, the same standard as 5-a-side football/futsal (40 meters long by 20 meters wide). Along the length of the field are 1- to 1.3-meter-high boards that prevent the ball from leaving the playing area. Each team consists of four movement players (all of whom are blind and must wear a mask) and a goalkeeper (sighted or visually impaired),...
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