I am not a good keeper by any stretch of the imagination, even for a park player, but I would fancy my chances of not being scored on most of the time from the penalty spot by someone who had never kicked a ball in anger before. A lot of the shots on target I expect I could stop with my feet as if I was intercepting a pass tbh. The reduction in power and accuracy for someone with no soccer experience is huge, though to be fair if they’d been taught the basics of how to kick a ball and had a little experience their chances would go up dramatically against.
Now the point about pro-players I would make is they are really good, in fact much better than most people imagine. The gap between pros and park players might not be so obvious when you watch a game when they are playing players who are also pros, but it is painfully obvious when you put someone at that level against amateurs. To give you an example I used to play a lot with a guy whose highest level of play was Hong Kong U-18s, but when he played against park players he did things with the ball that you never saw Maradona or George Best do in a pro game!
You don’t see very many slow shots in the pro game that go in and when you do, it would be a clever shot, which requires more than basic technique such as a lob or finishing off a move when the keeper is already effectively beaten. Against good keepers, unless you’re pulling something from the top draw*, you need power and accuracy always to beat them.
That’s kind of what I was heading towards. It’s going to be semi random within the potential arc. The Goalie is going to have to determine where the ball is headed after the strike with no clue at all from the run-up. And it stands a decent chance of heading toward the sides and corners.
If I was to try against a pro, and managed to convince my ego away from trying to actually “beat” him, I would just toe-punch the fuck out of it for those reasons.
RickJay is right on the money. The shot is purposefully designed to be easy to beat the goalkeeper. Pro’s shooting on goal from 12 yards out make the shot the vast majority of the time, the main reason they miss is their own fault. They try to put the ball too close to the edge and miss the goal completely. I see that more often than I see the goalie stop a pro from 12 yards away.
I don’t think I am a great soccer player, but dink one down the middle? Send them the wrong way? That just doesn’t happen at ALL with anyone who has played a decent amount of soccer. I can fire the ball at high speed and very confidently hit a 5’ x 5’ target. That is really all the accuracy you need to shoot an unblockable goal, assuming you don’t tip the direction, or the goalie doesn’t guess correctly.
Have you guys SEEN pro size soccer goals up close? (TV doesn’t count) They are enormous!
ETA: Someone mentioned 125mph for a soccer shot? That is indeed absurd. 60mph is about as fast as they ever go. Similar speed to US football QB passes, actually.
30-45 % if the goalkeeper steps off the field to get a cup of coffee or take a piss or something and the average American gets to try the kick with no goalkeeper to interfere.
ETA: or at least that would be my percent. on a good day.
Just checked out the Robokeeper videos and that goal is waaaaaayyy smaller than an actual goal. And Messi only missed by shooting too close to the edge and missing the entire goal twice, before successfully putting it in the corner on his third.
The point I’d make though you’re facing the best of the best. Neuer is the IFHSS best keeper in the World for the last two years, and his career statistic for penalties allowed vs penalties faced is 61% and that is against some of the best penalty takers in the World. I agree if you were a decent enough player you could score a penalty against Neuer, just not 50% of the time as that is only a little worse than Bundesliga/Champions League players have done! The best penalty-specialist keepers have even higher percentages, Diego Alves has only allowed in 53% of the penalties he has faced in his career, again against some of the best penalty-takers in the World.
131 mph is actually the fastest ever recorded speed for a goal scored in a professional soccer match and that was from a FK, admittedly that is freakishly quick though. Keepers rarely have to face shots above 80 mph.
I don’t know how often shot speeds are recorded, but any time I see a top 5 progression like. 95.9,96,97,114,131, for something that is done as often as kicking a soccer ball I have to wonder about measurement error on the last 2. Considering #1 was done on a stopped ball that contributed no energy of it’s own to the collision, and it was 30% faster than all other stopped ball kicks ever recorded?
Of course it does, I play regularly and sending the keeper the wrong way is an established method of penalty taking. And “sending them the wrong way” also includes inducing a dive and then striking it straight down the middle. You need some degree of skill to execute it regularly, particularly against the best keepers and an absolute amateur is unlikely to be able to do that on purpose. The best they can do is hit and hope that their ineptitude throws the keeper the wrong signals and luck gets the ball in the net.
However, if the keeper knows they are an absolute amateur then they’ll stand up until the ball is kicked and the scoring rate will be reduced. (but never to zero, big goals…lucky shot…etc.)
I absolutely do not believe a human being can kick a soccer ball 131 MPH. The typical speed at professional levels is 80 MPH; that would make 90 incredibly fast and 100 difficult to believe. 131 is beyond the capability of a human being. There was something wrong with the way that was measured.
Looking at that video I could confidently say that the ball travels the 20 metres or so to the back of the net in less than half a second. That would, at worst, be 40 m/s or around 90mph. My gut feeling is it may be slightly faster than that but the lack of accurate timing or measurement is a problem.
I think a lot of what makes the top flight goalkeepers the best is their ability to read the players. Really what you have is a poker game. If the striker successfully misleads the goalkeeper into reacting in a different direction than the shot, and assuming the shot is on target, he’s going to score every time. It doesn’t matter if he’s the best striker in the world, or just mediocre. Knowing how to manipulate the goalie is actually more important than your shooting ability. Same for the goalie. Reaction time and athleticism in getting to the ball is one factor, but reading the striker is going to have a bigger impact.
As a goalie playing in adult amateur leagues for years and years…
Even experienced amateur players are poor penalty shooters. My save average is higher if I wait to see the shot even at this level, most shooters don’t have the power and accuracy to force me into preemptively guessing the direction. A naive person off the street won’t even require me to move from my initial plant position 50% of the time, either kicking it directly at me or missing the goal completely.
I’d say a naive kicker will score on a pro at around 5%, mostly by dumb luck of hitting an upper corner.