Posted by ericsaints on February 25th, 2009 in Feature articles, Varsity activities

This sequel certainly took its sweet time getting published. Just to refresh our memory, Part I of this series on penalty shootout strategies came out way back in October 2007!

When the 1998 Redwoods won its semifinal game in last Valentine’s CSA Invitational via a shootout (and went on to win the championship), I remembered having started writing out Part II long ago. We’ve finally pulled it out of the Drafts, dusted it off, and posted it pronto!

SOME MORE TIPS FOR KICKERS:

We gave out bits of advice in Part I to players on how to take penalty kicks. Let’s add a few more.

1. Ignore the goalkeeper.

2. Focus on kicking the ball.

3. Decide on your plan and stick to it. Do not change it at any point during your run-up.

4. Forget the feints. We learned in The Laws of the Beautiful Game that feints are allowed, but do this only if it (a) is part of your plan, (b) helps you to ignore the keeper, and (c) doesn’t interfere with your focusing on kicking the ball. Remember, even the great Cristiano Ronaldo missed his penalty kick in the UEFA Champions League finals shootout against Chelsea last year, after a start-stop-go feint that failed to throw off Petr Cech.

TIPS FOR KEEPERS:

1. Make the goal appear smaller to the kicker. Before taking your position in the center, cross the goal from post to post, as if you’re staking out your territory. Once in position, spread your arms out.

2. You only need to stop the ball from crossing the goal line. You don’t have to try to catch or hold it. Follow-up kicks aren’t allowed in shootouts, so there’s no reason to gain possession of the ball. Concentrate on stopping the ball from crossing the goal line, with any part of your body. You can punch the ball out, block it with your leg or foot, or tap it away.

(Note: Since there’s no need to catch or get hold of the ball in penalty shootouts, some teams in youth soccer replace the regular keeper with another player, usually the most agile kid with quick reflexes. This tactic shouldn’t be taken as slighting the regular keeper. Regular goalkeepers possess a wide variety of skills, including good hands, the ability to read trajectories of shots coming from various angles on the field, the smarts to decide when to remain in place or go off his/her line, accurate volleying, and quick instinctive reflexes, aka reflex goalkeeping. Since the shootout situation essentially requires reflex goalkeeping only, there may be someone else on the team better at this particular skill than the regular keeper.)

3. Stay in the center of the goal. Don’t try to guess and dive in one direction. Some keepers in the games we see on TV do this because professional players taking penalty kicks rarely miss the (standard-sized) goal entirely, and choosing one side of the goal to dive towards becomes the keeper’s best chance of stopping the ball.

It’s different in youth soccer: Young players tend to miss the (smaller) goal completely, usually by kicking the ball over the (lowered) crossbar. Or, because they don’t have the consistency yet to accurately place the ball deep in any of the corners, they kick it within the keeper’s reach in the middle of the goal.

4. Expect right-footed players to kick the ball somewhere to your right, left-footed players to kick the ball somewhere to your left. A player kicks with the dominant foot crossing his body to the opposite side, which generally makes the ball go in that direction.

You can read about more goalkeeping tips for penalty kicks at the link below.

REFERENCE:

Penalty Kicks: Goalkeeping Tips