Thus, the only way you can tell if the ball is going towards or away from you is based on its size (if it’s getting bigger, it’s obviously moving towards you.) Since the camera is so far from the pitch, you can’t discern at that speed which direction the ball is going.

The same thing happens often in baseball, even to players on the field; because the ball is so small, hard fouls backwards often look like line drives / hard ground balls forward.