I really hate players that screw around on the runup, for some reason it drives me nuts. I dont know who the British commentator was today because he was more or less a massive idiot but at the end he made some good points about the shootout, pick a spot and just hit it with some power and your odds of scoring start going up dramatically.
Yep. It seems to me everytime players get too fancy with their runups, they miss most of the time.
I haven't been that stressed out watching a game since the '04 Flames SC run.
What a roller coaster!
We were visiting family so we stayed away from spoilers and watched the "match of the day" on TSN @ 8:30. Germany scores, I'm feeling awesome, a little later, the math hits me...there's 15 minutes of match left but 45 minutes of TSN run time...oh crap. Italy scores...double crap. Then penalties. I thought Basti was going to win the game and he misses bad, I was sure Italy was going to wrap it up.
Thank you Neuer!
That was a good option for the Germans, but not really so much for the Italians.
Most goalies are tall and fast, but Neuer is that very rare goalie who is so fast that he can catch hard balls near the post in a penalty kick, especially if he steals a bit. This forced the Italians to try other things.
(Longer breakdown of options and what happened)
Spoiler!
Generally you have four options in a penalty kick.
A) Hard (lowish) near the post. This is the go to option for most players, because it's a relatively easy kick that most goalies can't catch. Only problem is that you have to kick it quite hard, but not too hard or you risk missing.
B) High corner. If you can do this reliably, it really doesn't matter who the goalie is. But very few players can do this reliably. In a high pressure situation with tired legs most players know better than to try this.
"Just pick a spot and kick the ball" essentially means one of those two options above.
If you do want to play mindgames with the goalie, you essentially do one of two things:
C) Fool the goalie (and kick the opposite way from where he steals). This is a go to -option for many strikers, I'm guessing because for them it's more natural to look for the open space than to just kick the ball. Even if you can't fool the goalie, you might be able to freeze him which leaves you a ton of net to shoot at. Technically an easy kick, but makes you look like a fool if you fail. You can combine this a more difficult kick, but that also increases the risk.
Also very risky against top goalies like Neuer and Buffon. Especially Buffon.
D) High center. A variation of fooling the goalie. You don't try to read which way the goalie is going to steal, you just trust that it's going to happen.
Italians against Neuer: 3 times high center, 3/3. Good option against a stealing goalie like Neuer.
2 times high corner, 1/2. Again, this is difficult in a high pressure situation with tired legs.
1 hard near the post. 1/1. Insigne combines this with a bit of a waiting game, which requires good nerves. Excellent kick.
1 fool the goalie. 0/1. Bonucci manages a pretty good kick despite that and comes pretty close to pulling it off.
1 WTF Pellé? 0/1. Not hard, not high, doesn't wait out the goalie, misses the goal. You literally could not fail worse than this.
It's hard to say what the last Italian (Darmian?) tried to do, but most likely the idea was to go high corner or high center. Just couldn't get the ball up.
Germans against Buffon: 6 times hard near the post, 5/6. (Özil hit the post).
1 high corner (Schweinsteiger), 0/1. I think this is a clear example of nerves clouding Schweinsteigers judgment. He tried to make it 100% sure, but ended up taking an unnecessary risk.
1 fool the goalie (Müller). 0/1. Again, bad idea against Buffon.
Funnily enough the deciding kick by Hector was probably pretty much exact same kind of fail as the last Italian kick, except a bit harder. That difference in speed made it slip past Buffon.
"Just pick a spot" essentially means hard near the post (popular choice) or high corner (risky choice for confident players). The clear upside here is that you don't have to play mindgames with the goalies. But again, against Manuel Neuer going hard near the post isn't a great option.
However if you're up against Buffon, trying to fool the goalie in any shape or form is a bad idea. Buffon is possibly the best in the world at reading kickers, you don't want to play mindgames with him.
This is why I would say the Germans had a bit of an advantage in the shootout. As long as guys would just keep going hard near the post, something most players can do relatively reliably, they had an excellent chance at success.
Also it's good to remember that after 120 minutes of play your legs are sore and stiff, and after a supertactical waiting game like that your mind is going to be tired from all the stress. This is a big reason why shootouts are so much more difficult than doing those same kicks in practice with fresh legs an a fresh mind.
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Iceland winning tonight would certainly be one of the biggest upsets ever. Beating natural born chokers England is one thing, beating the hosts who are a better squad than England? Wow...
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"Think I'm gonna be the scapegoat for the whole damn machine? Sheeee......."
France have been winning, but I wouldn't say they've been great. It would still be a huge shock, but not like if Iceland beat this tournaments Germany or Italy.
