Subject: RE: BS: Football World Cup 2006
From:
Wolfgang
Date: 03 Jul 06 - 10:09 AM
Some remarks about the German penalty shootout "luck"/ability:
Germany lost the European final (76?) on penalties and has not lost since. Why? Preparation and exercise.
Revisit the link I have posted to the 2002 discussion and Ard Mhacha's thought after a dismal Irish penalty performance about why it is not worth exercising penalites. That's the Irish approach we know from many rebel ballads: Blame ill fate, bad luck, traitors and never the own preparation. Go home beaten but proud and hope for the sons to prevail next time.
In Germany, it started with former national goalie Andy Köpke. His record was close to 50% penalty killing and in some seasons over 50%. He had (his own? or) access to a database about the penalty taking habits of all players in the German league (and beyond). He knew who was aiming each time at the same corner of the box. He knew who would change the corner after a miss and who would after a goal. He knew in which players the angle of running to the ball predicted the correct corner. It does not help each time, but to know the habits is better than a fifty-fifty guess. Do you know the present job of Köpke? He is the German goalie coach with the only task of preparing the goalies.
Have you seen Lehmann pulling a piece of paper out of his socks and reading it before the shootout? Was it his laundry list or the goalie's prayer in times of need? No, it was the goalie coach's predictions about the corner the Argentine players most probably would aim at and an advice whether standing still or moving about would make them less more nervous. Out of four times, Lehmann was four times correct in the choice of the side and three times could touch the ball. The rest, but only the rest, is luck and ability.
That's the preparation on the goalie's side. On the penalty takers' side, there are still teams (like England for instance, as we have read in the newspapers) who prepare for shootouts like for the normal penalties during the game. All players stand near the penalty point and whoever feels like takes a shot. As if the FA would not have the money to pay a psychologist. But rather I think that's the Ferguson approach: A loud voice is better than any psychologist.
The difference is, in the game there is a small pause between the foul and the penalty kick. So whoever feels strong enough grabs the ball may be good enough there. But in a shootout you are perhaps shooter number four, so it means you have wait for several minutes before it is your time, long enough to build up fear of failure. Think of climbing the 10m tower in the swimming pool for the first time with the intention to jump down. It is much easier to jump quickly without second thoughts than to wait for 6 minutes and jumping then after having seen some beautiful and some failed jumps. Your heart will beat faster after a 6 minutes wait when you finally marched to the end of the board.
The good penalty taking teams exercise the shootout in a different way. All players are in the middle circle and then slowly walk the long way to the point from the middle circle. Loudspeakers simulate the noise of a supporting or adversarial crowds. The shooter may not shoot when he feels like but only at a sign from the "referee". Refereee correcting the position of the ball (goalies attending their shoes) is introduced at irregular intervals. The idea is to make the exercise situation as similar as possible to the real thing so that the player already knows how loud his heartbeat can become on the long way from midfield to the point. Sometimes, fear of failure is introduced as well (could be money, but even better would be that he has to do something he dislikes like attending a press conference when he fails).
It has nothing or not much to do with luck but with a good realistic training and with preparation and knowledge. All other claims like the goalie's quick reaction or his stare or that he trusts his feeling are nonsense meant to fool the opponents. If all teams would prepare this way then it would become luck again that decides. Nearly one third of the games in which a shootout can decide are decided this way, so nobody should say they are very surprised when it comes to that.
Speaking about preparation, maybe in England this story is not so well known yet: In 1970, in Mexico, Germany had a very difficult quarter final to play. The opponent, England, did exclude all public, press, and officials from the last training. That makes sense, for in the last training often some standard situations like freekicks and corners are fine tuned. Only the Mexican soft drink vendors were allowed on the field. One of them, under his sombrero, had a darker skin than he normally had and gave the English players the coke only with a nod and a smile because he couldn't speak a word of Spanish. But he could speak English in addition to his native German. Whether this ruse actually has helped I don't know.
Wolfgang
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sj
