The psychology of the penalty shootout: why movement is key and hesitation can be fatal

[Longineu]

Liverpool and Manchester City will know each other very well when they meet for the second time in a week just days after the Capital One Cup final, though at Anfield there will be no penalty shootout and no Willy Caballero.

Looking back on Sunday’s showpiece, as they say in all the best customer satisfaction surveys, which of the following statements best sums up the Wembley experience? a) Manchester City won the cup because their goalkeeper made three successive saves in the penalty shootout. Or b) Liverpool lost at Wembley because their penalties were indecisive and too easy for the goalkeeper to save.

 

You would have to say that both are accurate summaries, though Caballero still deserved his hero treatment because he made a decision that seemed to unnerve Liverpool. After going too early for the first penalty to allow Emre Can the easiest of Panenkas, the goalkeeper subsequently stood his ground, a somewhat risky strategy that nevertheless worked in his favour. “He waited until the very end for the Liverpool players to shoot,” Manuel Pellegrini said afterwards. “He never guessed which way they would go, and that’s why he saved three penalties.”

 

That is almost true, Caballero guessed for the first one and got it completely wrong, but that rather proves the point. A Panenka is only possible if a penalty taker is reasonably certain the goalkeeper will commit himself before the ball is kicked. The unconventional penalty style only came into being because the conventional way of taking a spot-kick, aiming for a corner and hitting the ball hard and true, had forced goalkeepers to go early to give themselves a chance of reaching the shot. Go the right way and you at least have a chance. Go the wrong way and you have no chance, though at least taking a gamble gives you better odds of reaching the ball than waiting until it is struck, because a penalty taker aiming for the corner would normally strike cleanly enough to find the target.

 

 

So why, in that case, did Caballero save three successive penalties by remaining rooted to the spot? The short answer is that Liverpool did not adapt quickly enough and begin aiming for the corners. Philippe Coutinho in particular did not seem to have noticed that the goalkeeper had changed his stance, even pausing in the run-up to attempt to get Caballero to move first, before realising too late that he had no back-up plan and sending in a tame shot that was far too easy to save. The penalties from Lucas Leiva and Adam Lallana were not quite as bad, but compared to City’s they were indecisive. After Fernandinho’s opener hit an upright, all three found the bottom corners, which is why City ended up winners with a shot to spare.

 

The lesson to be learned here is that penalty shootouts, often decried as an arbitrary and unsatisfactory way of forcing contests to a conclusion, actually have a life of their own. Though short and artificial they can be manipulated by either side. Though hitting a post is an occasional risk when aiming for the corners City seemed to have surrendered the initiative to Liverpool by missing their first, an impression strengthened when Can converted his first kick so confidently.

 

Yet that nerveless first strike set the tone for what followed. Caballero decided not to be so rash again, while Liverpool continued to suppose he would carry on selling himself early. Simon Mignolet, in the Liverpool goal, is normally a decent bet in a shootout situation, being a similar sort of shot-stopper to Caballero, but though he guessed right a few times he was unable to counter the precision of City’s kicks. Precision was exactly what Liverpool’s efforts lacked, and Caballero was able to clean up.

 

So in a penalty shootout situation at least, observation is key. If the goalkeeper is standing his ground, firmly struck shots to the corners are required. Even if the goalkeeper is guessing and going early, firmly struck shots to the corner still have the best chance of success, though once in a while a goalkeeper will guess right and keep one out.

 

It is worth considering what goalkeepers themselves do when taking a penalty. In a Champions League game in Turin in December 2009, the one that saved Louis van Gaal’s bacon as Bayern Munich manager actually, helping set up not only a run to the 2010 final in Madrid but a tilt at the first German treble, the game turned on a penalty awarded to Bayern towards the end of the first half. Van Gaal’s side were losing 1-0 at the time, and had that result stood Bayern would have gone out of the competition and their manager would probably have been sacked.

 

The penalty was converted, Bayern hit three further goals in the second half and never looked back, but the scorer of their first was their goalkeeper. Most unusually, Hans-Jörg Butt, a goalkeeper Van Gaal had stubbornly preferred to the younger and more promising Michael Rensing, came all the way upfield to take the kick. Though the pressure was considerable Butt scored almost nonchalantly, and he did so by dragging his feet slightly in the run-up to see which way Gianluigi Buffon would go, then calmly sidefooting the ball in the other direction.

 

If that is what goalkeepers themselves do, and opponents of the quality of Buffon can be tricked into going early, then perhaps Liverpool should not be blamed for trying the same tactic at Wembley. Yet what applies to a stand-alone penalty during the course of a game would not necessarily work in a shootout. Buffon would not have done the same thing five times, perhaps not even two or three times. If you can get the goalkeeper to move first you then have the best possible chance of scoring but, and it is quite a big but, if the goalkeeper twigs that you might do that he can unsettle you by staying put.

 

The one thing most players find impossible is to convert one sort of penalty into the other half way through. You are either going for power and direction or you are waiting to see which way the goalkeeper goes. If you find yourself changing your mind during the run-up you have probably handed the advantage to the goalkeeper.

 

When Caballero looks back on his finest hour, an occasion where his mental as well as physical agility proved critical, he will undoubtedly feel proud but might also feel he could have stood his ground for the first penalty. He could have made a simple catch to leave Can looking a chump, which is the risk with all Panenkas. Yet, and this is where the humble penalty shootout can become counterintuitive, that would not necessarily have won the game for City. Liverpool’s response would probably have been to take no risks and shoot firmly for the corners, and the outcome might have been quite different.

 

 

http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2016/mar/02/psychology-penalty-shootout-manchester-city-willy-caballero-liverpool