What are the ‘deep tactics’ on penalty shoot outs in soccer that top teams employ?

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There’s a lot of talk of the best strategy for penalty shootouts, and I’m wondering what top teams in international football now employ.

The reason I ask is that after the England-Swiss game, there was talk about how now you put the best penalty takers up first and FOURTH, as apparently fourth is the most important one, but I never knew this.

And also there is an ‘optimum’ pause between when the whistle goes and when you take the penalty, but what is it?!

Any information would be appreciated.

Ty

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5 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

It’s about creating pressure on your opponents and reducing it on your own team. You put your most reliable up first to get off to a good start. If you miss that one, you risk playing catch up for the rest. Miss the first one and every penalty after that is a must score.

I believe that for a long time the final penalty was considered the next most important, but it was realised that the final penalty regularly isn’t taken. If you’ve missed one, and the other team has scored 5, they don’t bother with the final one.

If we get to a point where it’s 3-2, and your team has missed one, you want to be certain of scoring the next penalty. If you miss it the opposition has two chances to win the game – their fourth penalty is relatively low stakes. If you’re on the other team, you want to make sure you score your 4th penalty as that means the opposition has two must score kicks coming up. If

The mental calculations can change if you take the first penalty, as you’re more likely to take 5 shots.

Anonymous 0 Comments

I’m going to talk as my experience from when I was a football player.
The penalty shootout doesn’t have deep tactics, there isn’t an obvious advantage of big teams against small teams. In my country it’s even called the penalties lottery because of it.

What we can observe is how the players can handle the pressure after being playing for over 120 minutes, when everyone is mentally and physically exhausted. Here the experience from the players of big teams may be more used and prepared for it.

However, it’s not just luck, some goalkeepers do their homework and study how the opponents usually do on such occasions, if ever. As for the strikers, the best ones are very unpredictable and mislead the goalkeeper with subtle body movements before kicking the ball.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Not a footballer, but have watched many penalty shoot outs.

The first tactic in today’s modern football is that when the time comes, you have 5 players on the field who are decent penalty takers. When Gareth Southgate was a player, he missed the 6th penalty vs Germany in Euro 96. He was a defender, and I don’t believe he ever took a penalty as a club player. He was bound to fail. That said, he was the 6th player to make an effort when usually you only need 5.

Some players just aim to place the ball in the far corner which is practically unsaveable by the keeper as they simply cannot reach the ball. This is the best approach in my mind, but does require very good accuracy as there is a risk of putting the ball wide.

Others will try to focus on the keeper and make him dive the wrong way. To do this, they wait for the keeper to move first and then slot the ball in the other direction. One difficulty with this is that the law says that the penalty taker must maintain forward momentum at all times. This is because players would stop during their run up in an attempt to make the keeper move first. This is not allowed as it is considered unfair.

Another tactic is to simply kick the ball as hard as possible and hope for the best, like Beckham did against Argentina. This tends to make the shot a little more central. This can work because most of the time the keeper will dive to either side. It would be a little weird for a keeper to simply not move.

Last night we also saw another interesting tactic by Ivan Toney of England. He kept his eyes on the keeper all throughout his run up and shot, i.e. he didn’t look at the ball for a second, and shot it “blind” so to speak. But apparently this is his system of doing it. Toney is one of the best penalty takers there is.

As for goal keepers – often the keeper will be given a list by their coaching staff of which way to dive for each opposition taker.

Also, goalkeeping shithousery is a thing. Keepers will employ various tactics to put off the shot taker, although the keeper is not allowed to move util the ball is hit. Jordan Pickford of England is a master of this. He pulls faces, talks to the shot taker ad generally tries anything to disturb their concentration. Sometimes it works, other times it doesn’t

Lastly, I think confidence is a huge part of penalties.

Anonymous 0 Comments

>And also there is an ‘optimum’ pause between when the whistle goes and when you take the penalty, but what is it?!

If you’re nervous, you make mistakes. It’s easier to not be nervous if you’re in a familiar situation. So many football players practice taking penalties and develop a ritual. For instance, putting the ball in a specific place, taking X steps back, inhaling/exhaling few times. This ritual takes a certain amount of time. Ideally, when the ritual is over, you shoot, because that’s when you’re used to shoot.

But if the opposing keeper is stalling, your ritual might be over before you’re allowed to shoot. So not only do you get nervous again, but you also get antsy because the moment to shoot that feels most natural is passing. That increases the chances of you taking a bad penalty kick.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Some things that worked in my experience:
Shooting:
– Best scorers at the beginning AND at the end of series
– Always starts the series and let the catch-up with the another team
– No penalties with less 90Km/h on either side
– Lefties mid fielders most of the time are good
– Avoid defensive players
– No short run before the kick
– Do not change sides during mid-run
– Do not look for the side that you will kick (make that decision before position the ball)

Defence
– If you’re a short goalkeeper, work with anticipation; if you’re a tall one wait the ball
– Cross jump works most of the time because the cross kick is way harder
– if you’re tall before the whistle give 2 short steps behind to read the kicker
– For all the right shooters you need only to read their other feet (in support foot or pé de apoio in PT-BR)
– if you cannot anticipate go with conviction after the ball left, in other words wait until the end