I think the general wisdom on the art of penalty-taking is to pick a spot and stick with it. Clearly didn't work too well for England. It doesn't surprise me to hear that the Germans prepared so thoroughly for penalty shoot-outs. That's tantamount to cheating as far as us English are concerned.
On the training pitch, it might be easy to change direction at the last minute, but I expect the pressure of spot kicks in a World Cup shootout is arse clenching. I reckon my 'tactic' would be to try and toe-poke it straight down the middle, safe in the knowledge that I'd probably hit it wrong and give the keeper no chance. If I didn't know where I was trying to kick it, he'd be very unlikely to know where it was going to end up. I use the same tactic when playing cards, mostly with the help of alcohol. I'm that drunk man your dad warned you never to play cards with.
I take the spot kicks for the team I play on and I have three flavours, for those rare occasions in which we end up winning more than one in a game. The first one always goes in the same place, week after week. The first time I had one saved it bothered me for a week and that's in park football. In front of 250,000,000 people I'm definitely going for the penalty I'm confident in and five minutes of scouting would tell everyone where that's going. JJs idea might have some mileage to it. Although I suspect Chris Waddle tried it 16 years ago. If I was a goalie I'd be very visibly pulling a piece of paper from my sock in a world cup shoot out, even if the only thing it said was "Pick up milk on the way home." If the guy running up thinks I know where he's putting the kick, then I already have the advantage, even if I've actually no clue.
Am I the only one thinking of Palombella Rossa right now?
Carragher (who was brought on late supposedly as a penalty taker) took his first one before the whistle and kicked it high and to his right (Ricardos left). Once the ref sorted out the confusion and Carragher went to take the second one, he went low and to his left. He obviously had different strategies, but what balls shown by Ricardo to guess correctly.
I hate that A-Rod, he's so bloody good-looking.
Luis Figo
via Check these stats.
Along with Italy's Gennaro Gattuso, Figo is one of the international footballers who would make awesome pirates. I've noticed far fewer pirates this tournament, after a 2002 World Cup that looked a lot like the Black Pearl had run aground in Tokyo Bay.
gg - quality stats link - thanks.
