A soccer ball weighs about 450 grams and, on a driven pass, arrives at up to 100 km/h. This player's face fielded most of that information in a single frame.
The ball flattens against her forehead, the skin ripples, and the expression lands somewhere between shock and instant regret about challenging for the header. Headers are a basic skill everyone practices. No amount of practice prepares your face for the camera catching the exact millisecond of contact.
A header is timed so the forehead, the strongest contact point, meets the ball on the player's terms. Mistime it by a fraction and the ball sets the terms instead. This frame is the ball setting the terms.
