I’ve always thought this would work a large amount of the time- we just saw Croatia do it twice. Ive always been curious about the science/ psychology of the penalty kick and for me the urge for the goalie to dive one side or the other would be too great.
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Shooting down the middle you’re relying on *luck*, relying on the goalie misjudging and prematurely jumping to one side.
Whereas shooting for a far side or an upper corner, you’re also relying on it being quite difficult for the goalie to jump and cover the spot *in time*; it’s physically difficult, not just lucky.
Keep in mind that defending the goal is what they do and train for all day, all year long. 100% they have studied the tendencies of every shooter and every opposing team that is in the world cup. If you do what you usually do, it’s predictable, and you’ll lose.
Its a bit of a mental game and a game of percentages, plus, people don’t always hit where they aim, even pros.
In theory, hitting down the middle is the best, most successful kicks… sorta. Its only that because goalies tend to choose one side or the other on nearly all penalty shots, like almost every one… why? Because most penalties go to one side or the other. That means that ones down the middle, despite being more successful, are less common.
But there’s a major problem: This becomes a circular argument … if more shots were in the middle, goalies would stay in the middle, thus, incentivizing players to instead shoot to the sides. Shooting down the middle is somewhere between bit of a guess and a a trick play
Oddly enough, the best places to shoot for are generally high in the net, however, these are often the hardest shots for a player to make.
Edit: To add on, penalty kicks are scored about 75% of the time (Im using rough math). And goalies have something like a 15%-20% chance to save if they go to one side or the other, and like almost nothing if they stay in the middle, since so few kicks go there. As such, its almost always worth it to just pick a side, even if you’re wrong, and if you’re wrong, you’re just betting on the smaller chance that they miss the goal.
Short version is if you can hit the top corners of the net, even if the goalie guesses right, they’re not getting a hand on the ball.
The psychological reasoning is that yes, most goalies dive to the side, so the middle should be open; but if he doesn’t, you’ll look like an absolute moron
Apart from a well placed shot in the corner being impossible to save for the goal keeper, shooting in the middle of the goal has a risk of the goalkeeper blocking the shot with his leg even if he picked a corner.
Also not every goalkeeper commits the very moment you hit the ball. If the ball goes to the corner he’s probably too late to react and dive. But if the shot is placed at the centre of the goal he can just keep standing there.
Statistically, penalties shot at a corner are more likely to go in, since it’s physically difficult for the goalie to get to the corner in time. The real question is why players *do* shoot them down the middle sometimes. Part of the answer is that the opposing goalkeeper (and their coaches) will study your previous penalties before the match. If you always take penalties the same way, this simplifies things for them. If you never shoot down the middle, then they might rule this out as a possibility. But you can second-guess them – if you always go for a corner, you can go for the middle and take them by surprise.
But part of it is to do with nerves, psychology and mind games. If you’re really nervous, you might not feel very confident at being able to place the ball in a corner. And missing entirely can be much more humiliating than having your shot saved. On the other hand, if the goalie fails to save a “bad” penalty, this can be a blow to *their* confidence. After failing to save a Panenka, they might be unwilling to risk diving for the next one.
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