If an average American 25-year old with no soccer experience took a penalty kick against the world’s best goalkeeper, what do you think the odds would be of the ball going in?
30%? 45%?
Totally guessing, I’d say under 50%. The kicker won’t have great directional control, especially if he tries to mislead the goalie. and he won’t be kicking it that hard or fast. Maybe 25% or lower.
Almost no chance.
Against a world-class striker, the goalkeeper has to basically guess a side. Against Bob Smith, he can just stand there, see which way the ball is going and swat it away.
An average guy with no soccer experience just doesn’t have power of shot. And if tries to kick as hard as he can, he’ll probably miss the goals altogether half the time. Even pro players do that fairly often.
Agree with the above. Definitely less than 10%… almost certainly below 5%.
ETA: Might be more interesting to think about the chances of a 25 year old WITH soccer experience, but not good enough to play college or pro.
In that case, he’d at least have some knowledge of how to kick the ball… have some control and maybe a tiny bit of experience taking penalties.
Maybe 10-15%.
Male or female GK?
If it’s an American who is in average shape and good health, and has been given a few practice kicks, I would say against the male keeper upto 30%. As long as he can keep it on target, he has a chance, and the keeper is truly guessing here, unlike in the professional game where he will know the preference of the kicker.
If he can keep it on target against a female keeper, closer to 75%
With no soccer experience? Almost no chance (maybe less than 1%). The penalty spot is 12 yards from the goal, which is a lot further than it looks on TV and gives the keeper plenty of time to react against any shots that a non-player could throw at them.
That is way to high! The pace that someone who hasn’t played soccer before can put on the ball means the keeper doesn’t have to guess.
The kind of shot that a non-player might score against a top player is a toe-punt where by luck they manage to get the power and hit it in the right place.
A GK has not only to guess which side the ball will go, but also whether its high, center or low, and a non pro is going to send it low, which is the most difficult to get anyway. A female GK OTH is also constrained, a ball which goes near the uprights is going to be a goal against her.
So If you have a set of 10 kicks each, I would expect the male GK to save 7 and the female upto three or four.
You’re still missing the point - a professional keeper (male or female) against someone with no training will not need to guess. They will wait until they can see which way the ball is going, then move that way to save it.
I agree entirely with post #4.
To give you an idea, I played football (soccer) from the ages of 6 to 26, albeit I only ever achieved basic competence - I always played at the lowest organised amateur level. I only once took a penalty kick in a real situation, and missed the target completely be several yards. In practice, I reckon I could beat an amateur keeper maybe 15% of the time. Against a pro keeper, my chances would fall to around 5%. For someone with no training, 2% is probably generous.
Almost nil (heh!) Your average untrained Joe American will unconciously aim for the center of net, and the goalie will barely even need to move.
I think that’s what would tend to happen, but given that their kick won’t be accurate it gives them a chance of misleading the goalie. However, if as stated above the goalie can just wait long enough to see the direction of the kick and then block it then chances are heading toward 0%. Maybe there’s some chance of a kick that comes off as kind of lob landing short and bouncing in because the goalie over-reacted. Do they ever do that in actual play to throw off the goalie? I’m not really seeing why they would because it’s such a high percentage kick for the pros.
1/1000 or 1/10000. An inexperienced kicker will not be able to put any type of speed on the ball. Just maybe they’ll have a wild kick which will go up to a corner, but otherwise I suspect the keepker could easily stop the ball. A keeper is used to stopping balls which are rocketing towards him. The ball from an inexperienced kicker will be moving in slow motion by comparison.
A similar example might be if an inexperienced person tried to strike out a pro baseball player. The pro is used to hitting 100 MPH pitches. An inexperienced person won’t be able to get anywhere close to that.
For professionals:
Successful penalty kick (74.7 %)
Saved by goalkeeper (18.2 %)
Shot missed the goal (3.5 %)
Hit the woodwork (and not ended with goal) (3.6 %)
That is a really high rate of success. To say your average 25 year old non-soccer athlete has an almost zero chance seems ridiculous. At least 10% is reasonable. I suppose a lot of it depends on if he gets any training or practice or he’s just kicking stone cold.
It seems like every season on the Amazing Race there’s a challenge of “score a goal against a college/semi-pro soccer player.” It usually takes them a few tries and when they finally get it in it’s clear the player isn’t really trying. Against the best goalkeeper who’s really trying? They have no real chance, just hope to get lucky.
Been awhile since I played goalie, but I’ve been around soccer for the past 50 years, and I’d say a skilled High School or College player might be around 40-50% and adults with some soccer background (but currently not playing) maybe 20%. For non-players? 3-5%.
IMHO, the non-skilled players would probably have better luck trying the old ‘toe-poke’ rather than ‘soccer style’. They’d hit 85% directly at the goalie or over the bar, mind you, but the other 15% would be hit hard but not centered, giving a ‘knuckle ball’ effect. Not great for trained soccer players, but for rank amateurs, probably thier best alternative. Because they ain’t fooling a professional goalie.
Even before this thread, this is what I had planned on doing should this happen to me. Small changes in my toe position would make for big changes in direction, building some deception into the kick.
Interesting that some people mentioned different gender confrontations.
I thought about the gender factor when I first read the OP because he didn’t specify. But to me, it’s most engaging to consider either a male “average American 25-year old with no soccer experience” against a top male goalkeeper or a female American 25 y.o. against a top female goalie. Still, I’m willing to make guesses on the cross-gender spot kicks as well:
A female (non-experienced average 25 y.o. American) penalty kick shooter against a top male professional keeper would have a non-zero chance of scoring, but only just. A converted penalty in this situation would probably be a complete fluke.
For example, if the shooter kicked the ball with her toe* as hard as she could (increasing the velocity and adding a “knuckleball effect”) while also managing to keep it on goal (with a toe-kick, that’s extremely difficult–even for a professional player) and also fooling the goalkeeper simply because of the random wildness of her approach. I’d say on average, maybe 1 goal out of 150 shots
A male shooter (non-experienced average 25 y.o. American) versus a world-class female keeper would likely do better than he would against a world-class male keeper just because the female keeper, due to her lesser size and strength (relative to the male keeper) couldn’t get to the ball quite as quickly as the male keeper. Even so, I think that would only raise his success rate from 2-3% against the male keeper to maybe 4-6% against the female.
*As The Stainless Steel Rat mentioned, the toe-kick strategy would probably be the best one for a male shooter as well as a female because in the posited scenario, the non-experienced shooter is probably only going to score due to sheer dumb luck.
Somewhat relevant to the discussion, here’s a YouTube video of a professional team taking on a team of 22 amateurs. It’s not in English but you can turn on the English subtitles if you’re interested in what they’re talking about.
I don’t think I have to spoiler that the pros kick their ass.
.
I know virtually nothing about soccer, so educate me on penalty kicks.
Can the kicker do the equivalent of throwing a curve ball? By that I mean a ball that looks like it’s heading in one direction but then changes direction. Or does a ball pretty much move in a straight line in the direction it’s kicked?
As has been said, they wouldn’t need to guess, the pace of the kick of a non-player would easily give them time to react, as I said 12 yards is furtehr than it looks on TV!
Just to give you an example I’ve played a lot with and against a keeper (RIP Andy -unfortunately he killed himself earlier this year), who was never a pro, who had played youth with an English Championship team and had played and coached at semi-pro level. One-v-one against a park player in a pick-up game I would expect to score most of the time and I had a few clever finishes up my sleeve. Against this player I knew unless I got off a shot with very good placement and power I just wasn’t going to score even from a few yards as the reaction and technique were so good.
The point I’d make is the best goalkeeper in world is very, very good and not prone to mistakes, for a non-player to score from 12 yards against such a player from a dead ball requires an incredible fluke of pace and placement.