Wow. Not going near this conspiracy stuff.
Never watched England play, have you?
http://www.penaltyshootouts.co.uk/countries.html
Mexico have won 36% of their penalty shootouts. England have won 17% of theirs. Holland have won 20% of theirs. Hell, even Italy and Spain have only managed to win 33% of theirs respectively.
Well, at least we’re better than Bhutan.
Brilliantly, the only shootout England have won (I think) was against Spain, another team with a terrible record in shootouts. And even then it was at Euro 96, so England were at home.
I once saw England play the Dutch in an U21 tournament where it went to 13-12. It was amazing - like both sides couldn’t quite manage to lose it and conform to stereotype. In the end, England lost - we drill losing on penalties into them young over here.
ETA: http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/interactive/2012/jun/25/euro2012-uefa
This is a bit more up to date than that other link by the looks of things. Might change the percentages a touch.
I still remember Stuart Pearce putting his in at Euro '96 against the Germans and pumping his fist as though he’d won the match (since it was his miss in 1990 that put the Germans through.) It was so blindingly obvious that the next man up was going to miss.
Serious question, if answerable: How can teams be so bad at penalty shootouts? Say what you like about England’s overall quality, but 20% is really low. I wonder if it’s a psychological thing. I’ve always thought there must be something to that because the England football team seems to strive to be an example of a whole that’s lesser than the sum of its parts.
Serious answer: the England team is under more pressure, and tends to fold more often as a result. No sport press corps in the world is as obsessed (or as harsh) as Britain’s. I’m not sure if that is a symptom or a cause of the woefully unrealistic (and often touching) expectation we all share that England should be a perennial World Cup/European Cup challenger.
One of my most vivid memories is David Batty’s penalty being saved by Carlos Roa. Sadly, that was the highlight of the tournament for Argentina.
**RNATB **- the raging fist pump was against Spain. Against Germany, he just looked over his shoulder and had a wry grin.
Bozuit - I really don’t know - if someone knew what the magic formula was, you’d have thought they’d be selling it to the highest bidder by now. I think it’s the one part of the game where records from years back actually do have a bearing on the players, even if they weren’t involved. Every time England get into a penalty shoot out, I can’t imagine what the players must think - but I know everyone around the country is “here we go again”. More logically, I think they just don’t practice them enough. There’s this theory that you can’t replicate the pressure - and that might be true - but it has also been pretty much proved that a shot of sufficient power into the upper corners of the goal is unstoppable for a goalkeeper positioned in the middle of the goal. Hence this becomes a muscle memory thing in my opinion. Go out and practice taking them again and again - especially when you’re tired, so you can replicate this stuff and you must give yourself a better chance.
Two cases to back my argument up:
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In the lead up to these NBA Finals, I’ve heard a lot about Ray Allen’s 3 pointer that clinched a game last year. He’s on record as having practiced that specific shot (including the gather and the step behind the line at speed) over and over, so that he had better chance to drain it if he needed it. Quotes in this article http://grantland.com/features/chris-bosh-2014-miami-heat-career-scoring/ second hand from Chris Bosh.
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In rugby, Jonny Wilkinson was famous for practicing all his kicking over and over and over again. Left footed, he practiced with his right foot too, to become two footed. He slotted a game winning kick in the World Cup Final, in extra time, with only 30 seconds left on the clock (i.e. as exhausted as he was ever likely to be, given the game was also at the end of a long tournament) - using his right foot.
It’s reductive to look at it like this, but if I lived my life again and became a professional footballer, I’d be practicing those penalties until I could do it with my eyes closed.
Do you really think so, though? Football is popular here, but we’re a little more reserved than some other nations who enjoy a good five minute “GOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!”
Or is it that other nations are more passionate about football without it being necessary for their team to do well? Are the Spanish press less harsh? Does anyone know how the Dutch, with their similar penalty record, compare?
The other reason I’m a little sceptical of this explanation is that many of the penalty takers have plenty of experience of other tournaments and matches which are incredibly important to their teams and their owners. And some people thrive under pressure - you’d expect top players to be able to do that.
That explains the commercial! There’s a World Cup themed commercial in which fans are talking about their teams’ chance of World Cup success. It ends with an English (based on the accent) fan saying [paraphrased]: “But if it goes to penalties, we’re screwed”.
I took it to be a harsh jab at Joe Hart, but now I understand that it was more on England’s penalty-taking history. If only Gerrard could take them all!
You mean the Gerrard that missed in a penalty shoot out in a quarter final in Germany in 2006?
Thanks for the correction.
Yeah, it goes back to at least 1990. Before that England’s bad luck was only notable for the Hand of God goal.
Insults aren’t allowed in this forum, so don’t call anyone a name again.
Idle Thoughts
Mod of Game Room
Not sure. They are where my wife works but she will be out of town that day. The U.S. of A. generally isn’t quite as soccer-crazy as some countries so it’s not like any days will be given off when the USMNST plays, or anything like that. I probably won’t take any time off to watch any of the matches, either. However, I will probably watch as many on the weekends as I can.
True, England’s “no great shakes” at penalty shootouts but I stand by my belief that the Mexicans are the absolute worst. When that 1986 quarterfinal between them and the Germans went to penalties we ALL should have known what was going to happen next (I think the Mexicans managed to put one past the villainous Schumacher [who, in my opinion, shouldn’t have been allowed to compete in that tournament at all after what he did 4 years earlier] but all of their other attempts were exTREMEly weak). True, the Italians, Dutch, and Swedes aren’t exactly known for penalty taking excellence, either, but if I were a betting man I’d still pick ANY of them to oust the Mexicans on penalties.
And that 1996 quarterfinal was one that, in all honesty, England’s team was lucky to get to the penalty kick stage of in the first place. As I recall the Spanish had two perfectly good goals disallowed in that match. A harbinger of things to come for them (South Korea, 2002).
I’ll err on the side of the evidence myself. Mexico are better at penalties than a number of other countries, as is demonstrated by the facts - though still performing worse than a coin flip’s chance, which people seem to believe penalty shoot outs are. I wouldn’t want to be them going into a penalty shoot out but, being English, I’d rather be them than us. Mind you, being English, I wouldn’t want to go up against anyone in a penalty competition.
In fairness to Stuart Pearce and the rest of the English team - NOBODY beats the Germans on penalty kicks (well, at least not since the Czechs did 38 years ago). As you’ve seen I’m no admirer of Deutscher Fußball but if there is ONE thing I’ll give them it’s that they are the “cold-blooded killers” of penalty taking. Why do you think Marcello Lippi, in 2006, threw caution to the wind in the semifinal in Dortmund and put 3 or 4 strikers on the pitch at once in extra time?
Yeah, that was a bummer. Might very well have never happened that way had that bastard Diego Simeone not “sold” that little leg flap of David Beckham’s so well to Kim Milton Nielsen. Too bad for England that their team had to go out that way to the dastardly Argentines. Not that it was much comfort for England but it was mighty satisfying for me to see what happened to the Argentines in their next match…