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
In: Other
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.
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