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Re: Penalty Shoot Outs
BTW Baggio was considered a great penalty taker. Something like 120 out 135
Possibly the greatest of all penalty takers was Maradona. He actually waited for the keeper to move to a side then would kick it the opposite direction. I'm sure he missed a few too but I can't remember if he took them games as big.Comment
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Re: Penalty Shoot Outs
Must have been a ripper last week!
Celtic defeated Dundee United in the Co-operative Insurance Cup Semi Final 11-10 on penalties.
[COLOR="Red"][B][U][COLOR="Blue"]85, 92, 97, 98, 08, 09, 10... Break the curse![/COLOR][/U][/B][/COLOR]Comment
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Re: Penalty Shoot Outs
I have an interesting point for those like SS who are discussing the merits/easiness of penalties. I lived in Cologne for 6 months, and my housemate was a triathlete who was a sports researcher at the German University of Sport in Cologne -- we had soccer players etc. coming through the doors all the time.
Now, as anyone who loves their soccer will know, Germany are the undisputed kings of the penalty shootout. They have only missed ONE penalty in 20 years of penalty shootouts, and that was in the very first ever penalty shootout in international soccer back in 1984 (trivia questions all -- who missed it? who were they playing etc.) -- funny aside: the guy who missed drops to the ground with his head in his hands like he's been shot and lies there for a whole minute. That's how much Germans don't expect to miss penalties.
Anyway, my point is this: the English (who would easily be on the shortlist of the worst penalty takers in history) have the same attitude as those who would say 'it's up to the kicker to miss, all the pressure is on the kicker, it's a matter of luck blah blah blah'. That's why if you watched England's last shootout in the World Cup (against Portugal), Paul Robinson the England keeper had no idea where any of the shots were going to go and didn't even move for three of them.
Was anyone watching Jens Lehmann, the German goalkeeper, when he lined up for Germany's penalty shootout in the quarterfinals? He had a piece of paper that he was studying as the kicker walked up to the spot. The paper contained the name of every player on the opposition team, their preferred foot and and their penalty preferences - 1st and 2nd choice. He ended up saving 3 of the 4 penalties taken (the 5th was never taken because Germany had won by then).
Now, I've been in the simulation chamber in the German University of Sport (I suppose it would be similar to the one down at the refurbished Whitten Oval) where you can load up literally any one of thousands of players on their database, and there will be a silllouhette projected on the lifesized screen that will simulate their penalty taking. A goalkeeper can then stand 'in goal' as it were, and get used to every conceivable type of penalty, learning to react intuitively to cues such as backlift, angle of approach etc. I've seen keepers from Borussia Dortmund, Bayer Leverkusen etc just work in the chamber for hours on end, training their reflexes until they know instinctively where to guess 70 - 80% of the time.
Conversely, outfield penalty takers have their eyeball movement tracked and recorded when taking penalties to discover the optimum side to kick to, where they should be looking etc, and they are given only two options when taking penalties - top right or top left corner, and they repeat it ad nauseum until they can shoot to either spot on demand. They also have their VO2 max taken after 120 minutes to figure out who is in the best physical shape (and thus mentally fresher) to take penalties and in which order.
Now tell me that penalty shootouts are a matter of luck. Tell me that you are not a 'villian' if you don't train for a penalty shootout like you would train for a game. England even says that they don't practice for shootouts -- absolute madness when you consider how many tournaments are decided by them.
Tell me, if it's just a matter of luck, that it's an accident that Germany has never ever, ever lost a penalty shootout in tournament play.Comment
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Re: Penalty Shoot Outs
Funny thing is, the superstar players are the most likely to fluff their kicks -- Maradona missed his penalty in a Copa America final, in World Cup penalty shootouts TWICE (Yugoslavia and US). Some other famous penalty misses are: Platini , Socrates, Zico, Baggio has already been mentioned, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho etc all missed when they were the best player in the world/tournament they were playing in.
Factors suggested for this are: the pressure of being the 'best player' so expected to score easily, and scoreboard pressure, as the best player normally takes the 4th or 5th penalty, so is usually kicking to win the game or to save it.
Funnily enough, having just bagged English players in my previous post -- I would have to say the best penalty taker I've ever seen (apart from every single player to have pulled on a German national jersey) is Alan Shearer. Top left, top right, at will, semifinals, quarterfinals etc. and I've never seen him even come close to missing.Comment
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Re: Penalty Shoot Outs
They haven't really used science, they have simply studied their opposition like professional sportsmen should.Originally posted by craigsahibee
Now, how would you feel if they invented some kind of mindreading device where the goalie knew in advance which way the kick would go?Comment
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Re: Penalty Shoot Outs
I think technology has ruined the games of tennis and golf.Comment
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