You will have seen it a hundred times. A player jogs over to a team-mate during a break in play, puts a hand over his mouth and says something we will never hear. The cameras zoom in, the commentators speculate, and the moment passes.
Ben Foster thinks he knows what is going on behind those hands, and it is probably not what most fans assume. On his Fozcast podcast, the former England goalkeeper explained, with a big grin, that a lot of the time players are not talking about the opposition at all. They are talking about their own side.
What Foster Said
The conversation started with a simple observation. When you watch football on television on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, you constantly see players covering their mouths. Everyone knows the reason. They do not want lip readers working out what they are saying.
But Foster and his co-host went further. In their view, most of the time, players are having a go at their own team. They acted out some examples, and they were exactly the sort of thing you would hear in any changing room in the country.
A player complaining about a team-mate who has had a shocker. Another insisting he warned everyone this player was not good enough. Someone pointing out that the manager has got the tactics completely wrong.
Foster put it simply. That is what footballers are like.
Watch here:
Why It Rings True
I laughed when I heard it, partly because it is funny and partly because it makes complete sense.
Think about the situations where you usually see it. A team is losing, a goal has just gone in, or someone has made a mistake. Those are not the moments when players are calmly discussing the opposition’s shape. They are the moments when frustration boils over, and the easiest targets are the people closest to you.
Footballers spend more time with their team-mates than with their own families during the season. Like any group of colleagues, they have favourites, they have grudges, and they have opinions about who is pulling their weight. The only difference is that their workplace has 30 cameras pointing at it.
Why the Hand Came Up in the First Place
Covering the mouth was not always so common. It became more widespread as television coverage improved and lip readers became part of the story.
The most famous example is probably the 2006 World Cup final. After Zinedine Zidane headbutted Marco Materazzi, newspapers and broadcasters hired lip readers to try to work out what Materazzi had said to provoke him. Suddenly, every word a player said on the pitch could become a headline.
Since then, the hand over the mouth has become almost automatic. Managers do it on the touchline, players do it at set pieces, and goalkeepers do it when they are organising their defence. Some of it is about tactics. Teams do not want opponents knowing what they plan to do at a corner. But plenty of it, as Foster suggests, is about protecting people from hearing what is really being said.
Foster Knows the Dressing Room
It is worth remembering who is saying this. Foster spent two decades in professional football, with spells at Manchester United, Birmingham City, West Bromwich Albion and Watford, plus a short comeback at Wrexham in 2023. He won caps for England and went to the 2014 World Cup.
Goalkeepers have a unique view of a team. They stand behind everyone, they see every mistake, and they spend a lot of the game shouting instructions. If anyone knows what gets muttered behind a raised hand, it is the keeper.
Since retiring, he has built a big following through his podcast and his cycling channel, largely because he is willing to say things about football that players rarely say in public. This is a good example.
The New Rule
There is a more serious side to this, and it has changed the game this year. In April, football’s lawmakers at the International Football Association Board approved a new rule allowing competition organisers to show a red card to a player who covers his mouth in a confrontational situation with an opponent.
The proposal came from FIFA after a Champions League match in February, when Real Madrid’s Vinicius Junior accused Benfica’s Gianluca Prestianni of abusing him while covering his mouth. The rule was introduced at this summer’s World Cup.
It is important to be clear about what the rule covers. It is aimed at players covering their mouths while confronting opponents, because that is where abuse can be hidden. It does not stop a player whispering to his own team-mate about a bad pass.
So the habit Foster is talking about is safe, at least for now.
Does It Matter?
I do not think there is anything wrong with what Foster is describing. Football is an emotional game, and players are human. Criticising a team-mate in the heat of a match is not the same as abusing an opponent, and most of these comments are forgotten by the time the players reach the dressing room.
As a Palace fan, I have sat in the stands and said far worse about our own players than anything a footballer is likely to say behind his hand. Most supporters have. The difference is that we do not have a camera pointed at our faces when we do it.
If anything, I find it reassuring. It suggests players care about the result just as much as we do, and get just as frustrated when things go wrong.
My Verdict
I think Foster has said out loud what a lot of us suspected. The hand over the mouth is not always about tactical secrets. Quite often, it is the footballing equivalent of complaining about a colleague by the kettle.
It is funny, it is honest and it is very human. It also explains why players are so keen to keep the cameras out.
The next time you see two players with their hands over their mouths after a goal goes in, it is hard not to wonder which of their own team-mates they are talking about
