DORTMUND, Germany – Here is a quiz question: What does the 2022 World Cup FinalO 2021 Africa Cup of Nations FinalO 2020 European Championship Final and the 2016 Copa América Final have in common?
Answer: All were resolved in the penalty shootout.
Like it or not, penalties – that tense battle of wills over 12 yards (11 metres) – have increasingly become a big part of football, an inevitable feature of the knockout stage in the biggest competitions.
Added to the laws of the game in 1970, penalty shootouts have ruined careers (Roberto Baggio never got over his defeat in the 1994 World Cup final), spawned pizza adverts (Gareth Southgate starred in one after his decisive penalty miss at the European Championship ). 1996) and, in the case of Lionel Messi in the last World Cup, he achieved a victory that definitively guaranteed the player a place in the pantheon of football greats.
This is why those who delve into the psychology and science of football are perplexed as to why this tiebreaker system has been – and continues to be – ignored by many teams, especially in these data-driven times.
“There are so many things you can do to prepare your team for penalties, to train them for penalties, to help your players and your team deal with the pressure of penalties,” says Geir Jordet, professor at the Norwegian School of Science of Sports and author of the recently published book, “Pressão: Lessons in Penalty Psychology”.
“You can do it as an individual, as a team, as a manager,” he said.
The theory that penalty shootouts are a “lottery” is a widely used and often repeated one, with recently-deceased Chelsea manager Mauricio Pochettino saying exactly that in December after winning a cup game.
Johan Cruyff, the late Dutch maestro, gave short shrift to the idea that teams can prepare for penalty kicks.
“Taking penalties in training is useless,” he said in 2000. “The penalty is a unique skill outside of football.”
Cruyff adheres to the philosophy that a player can never simulate the pressure of a penalty shootout – that initial wait in the center circle, that long walk to the penalty spot, those few seconds face to face with the goalkeeper – on the training pitch. .
Later this year, French coach Didier Deschamps criticized an attempt by the French Football Federation to present an initiative to improve the team’s performance in shoot-offs. France lost to them in the round of 16 of Euro 2020 and in the 2022 World Cup final against Argentina.
“I am convinced – and my past as a player gives me this information – that it is impossible”, said Deschamps, “to recreate a situation, on a psychological level, between training and the game”.
Jordet acknowledged this, but said it is “absurd” not to try to simulate these pressure situations in training.
“There are studies that show that training with mild anxiety will prepare you and help you perform better in high-anxiety conditions,” he said, before looking at other professions and areas of work.
“If you look at military training – in peacetime, which is what we’re used to, should they train for war activities and for the pressure and stress of being in a conflict, or should they just sit back and say we can’t simulate the pressure and stress of being in an active firefight? This is absurd. It’s the same case with pilots or if you look at surgeons or emergency room doctors.”
Jordet specifically analyzed the penalty shootout at the last World Cup and how the coaches managed the two minutes they had with their players between the end of extra time and the start of the penalty shootout. He noted that the winning teams, “without exception,” were those whose coaches took the least time to give instructions.
In the final, Argentine coach Lionel Scaloni’s nomination process took 15 seconds, Jordet said, because his team was prepared.
“Deschamps,” Jordet added, “spent almost 20 seconds considering who should kick to each of his beaters, looking around, basically showing how little clarity he had about what to do. It was probably something his players would notice too.”
EURO HISTORY
There have been 22 penalties at the Euros, including four in 1996 and 2020. Of the 232 penalty shots, 178 were successful – a success rate of 76.7%. This fits with data models that typically say the expected success of a penalty is 0.76 (i.e., 76 out of 100 penalties would typically be scored).
GO FIRST OR SECOND?
Enough of the widespread perception that the team that comes second in the penalty shootout is at a disadvantage because it is under extra pressure. O last major study on penalties, which has covered men’s European football competitions for the past 11 years, showed that the winning percentage of the team that shoots first from penalties was 48.83. Jordet said the lead had “progressively and drastically diminished” compared to older polls, some of which stated there was about a 60% chance of the team winning first.
TEAM ORDERS
That same study showed that the first kick is taken in penalty shootouts more often than any other (almost 84%) and is typically taken by the most reliable penalty taker. Messi and Kylian Mbappé took the first two shots in the World Cup final penalties, for example. The probability of success for a team’s second kicker drops to about 72%, the study says, while the team’s fifth kicker who took second failed to take a penalty in 43.26% of penalties. Putting your best striker in 5th place on the list is dangerous, then – just ask Cristiano Ronaldo, who never managed to take a penalty when Portugal lost on penalties to Spain in the Euro 2012 semi-finals, and Mohamed Salah, who was stuck as His Egyptian team lost the 2021 African Cup of Nations final.
TACTICS
Beware of playing in penalty shootouts or regular shootouts. Opponents were seen trying to rake the grass around the venue in hopes of making the taker slip. This meant that, on some occasions, players from the team that received the penalty gathered around the area to protect the pitch. Another recent phenomenon is a player holding the ball close to the penalty spot when a penalty is awarded and then passing it, at the last minute, to the teammate taking the shot. “It’s about turning the individual act of scoring a penalty into a collective team performance,” said Jordet. There have also been several examples of reserve goalkeepers or outfield players being brought on as substitutes at the end of extra time because they have a better record on penalties than the regular starter. See the Dutch goalkeeper Tim Krul in the 2014 World Cup and goalkeeper for Australia Andrew Redmayne in the 2022 World Cup qualifiers.
NEW TECHNIQUE
There’s a new dominant penalty technique – and it’s not for the faint-hearted. It involves the batsman approaching the ball and waiting for the keeper to make the first move. What invariably becomes a stuttering routine has been called a “goalkeeper-dependent technique” by experts like Jordet. “It’s very sophisticated and difficult to execute when the pressure is really on,” he said. “If you are competent in executing this technique, it will effectively eliminate the risk factor of the goalkeeper going in the right direction and your chances suddenly decreasing.” Poland captain Robert Lewandowski has been using it since 2016 – and used against France on Tuesday – and Harry Kane is a recent adopter.
PROVEN PEDIGREE
History suggests that Germany may be the best penalty shootout team in Europe, having won all six penalty shoot-outs since losing the first European Championship to Czechoslovakia in the 1976 final. England, who have suffered so many penalties over the years – particularly in the last Euro final – in their 2-7 overall record. The Netherlands (2-6) didn’t fare much better.
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This story originally appeared on ABCNews.go.com read the full story
