FIFA World Cup 2018: Penalties and Analysis of Football Teams

Rival teams know where the GOATs are grazing, so to speak, when it's over. acts of spots. Often, when his team is lagging, Lionel Messi goes to the left of the goalkeeper. Ronaldo, on the other hand, favors the lower right corner. (Photo Reuters)

Carlos Bacca is not the surest of penalty takers. The Colombian center-forward misses one in four attempts. But that was not the only reason why Jordan Pickford imagined his chances against him. The England goalkeeper was armed with a crucial intel: when he is under pressure, Bacca pulls to his right.

Tuesday night in Moscow, Pickford – and England – used this statistic in the most crude way possible. When Bacca took his shot, Pickford jumped to his right, parrying the ball away from his outstretched hand. This was the most crucial moment of a dramatic shootout while England, marked by decades of failures, finally won a decisive match.

It should also help to close one of the favorite shots of football. This logic could have been true ten years ago, when the use of statistics and technology was at a primitive level. But as the teams have shown in recent years, especially in this World Cup, the sport has become smarter. There is science behind penalties, not just luck.

Each team has at least one badyst whose only job is to study the penalty models of their opponents. Tuesday night, Pickford and David Ospina, the Colombian goalkeeper, have almost always guessed the right direction. But most kicks were so good that it was almost impossible to save them. Of course, it is impossible to say what the shooter will do at this moment. But the data helps the guards make an educated guess, giving them a better chance of saving the penalty.

Coincidentally, it is in Moscow that the first real impact of data science in shots on goal at a major tournament was exactly 10 years, in a match involving English teams. Before the final of the 2008 Champions League, Chelsea boarded a researcher named Ignacio Palacios Huerta

Penalty Doctor
The Spanish has prepared a record on each player from Manchester United and l & # 39; one of his results was particularly striking: Cristiano Ronaldo, he observed, he paused during his run-up, waited for the goalkeeper to commit and split the ball on the opposite side. Huerta also pointed out that most of Ronaldo's kicks were to the goalkeeper's right. These plays were relayed to Petr Cech, the current Arsenal guard who was with Chelsea at the time.

The final ended 1-1 after additional time and penalties came into play, Cech – who until then was simply counting on instinct – followed Huerta. Advice. When Ronaldo's turn came, he, as expected, stopped briefly in his run-up. But Cech did not move. This Ronaldo destabilized and he finally hit a weak shot on the right. Cech jumped in that direction and saved it. The match forced Ronaldo to change his momentum – he never repeated the break.

In the same match, Huerta also provided the Chelsea forwards with fascinating glimpses of Manchester United goaltender Edwin van der Sar's shooting action. The Dutchman, he said, tended to dive to his right. Thus, in the tie-break, the first six penalty shooters aimed for Van der Sar's left, each time he went to his favorite side.

Then, the most remarkable thing happened. When Nicolas Anelka got up to take the decisive kick, Van der Sar pointed to the left, as if to say, "I know what you're going for," which cast doubt in the mind of Anelka. . He quit for an extra second after the referee whistled, trying to decide which way to go before choosing to go to the right. Van der Sar jumped in that direction and made an impressive stop. A clbadic example of what Gary Lineker said, that the penalties are "a war of nerves between kicker and goaltender"

That night, Anelka's decision to depart from the plan cost his team a European title. But Huerta's reputation has grown many times. In the football world, they started to call the penitentiary. This is not only because of this night in Moscow

Coin toss
In 2003, he presented a fascinating thesis (Professionals Play Minimax), badyzing 1,417 penalty kicks, mainly from leagues in Spain, England and Italy. This was the kind of research that had never been done before, going into every detail of every penalty taken – the reaction of players in pressure situations, the placement of penalties and the like.

who took the first shot first won 60.5 percent of the shootings. This, he concluded, was due to the mental pressure exerted on the team that gave the second goal, the need to score to stay in the game.

Toss, one of the most undervalued before shootings, thus becomes crucial. In the quarterfinals of the 2008 European Championships, Gianluigi Buffon won the draw and allowed Spain to take the first kick. Italy lost while Spain won the title. In the final of the Champions League 2016, Atlético de Madrid won the shot before the shootout and decided to take revenge on their rivals Real City. They, too, could not cope with the pressure and lost.

This shootout, too, revealed the kind of study that goes into the shootings. Atlético's goalkeeper, Jan Oblak, noted that Real, would take a small step to the side where he would jump right before the penalty is taken. This would help cover the turn faster and more efficiently. Real Real kickers slowed their run, saw Oblak's first step and put the ball in the opposite corner

These penalties were not perfectly taken, but it was not not important because Oblak had no chance of saving them. ] Penalties perfect
An badysis of Opta, one of the leading sports badysis companies, shows that the highest penalties are the least spared because it is difficult for the guards to cover these areas. In the penalty shootout of Euro 96, where Gareth Southgate missed his kick, 9 of the 11 penalties were hit in the best corners. The current coach of England fell down and his attempt was saved.

Penalties taken on the surface also have a high success rate, but only when they are directed against the net and hit with a lot of venom – nearly half of Cristiano Ronaldo's 104 specific penalties are hit here. At this World Cup, 9 of the 24 penalties in the group stage were hit in the bottom right corner of the goal. But the accuracy is a key issue here – slightly weak, and it will be saved – as the missed Bacca attempt failed on Tuesday.

Research shows that from the point of view of goalkeepers, this is not a bad bet. their soil. In 2010, badysts Florian Baumann, Tim Friehe and Michael Wedow (General Skills and Specialization: Evidence From Penalty Kicks in Soccer) studied 999 penalties in the Bundesliga and concluded that 15% of players were injured. At the same time, a separate study of 286 penalties showed that only two percent of the guards remained in the center. This, it is said, is due to an action bias – where goalies feel that it is important to be seen as making an effort rather than doing nothing and not doing anything. to be blamed.

It is of course impossible for the guards to remember this in the heat of the moment. So some, like Julian Pollersbeck, take the extreme step of sneaking into the cheat sheets on the ground. The German goalkeeper was spotted by checking the small sheet of paper, hidden in his left sock, containing penalty instructions during the semi-finals of the U-21 European Championship against England. He made two brilliant saves, sentencing England to another shootout loss.

On Tuesday, Pickford ended the tie-break of England. There was a lot of skill to succeed in stopping. But there was also science behind it

AbaB at ABBA

A-B-A-B-A-B-A-B-A-B
This is the traditional format used in this World Cup. Each team has five kicks and takes it in turn. The team with the most goals at the end of the five kicks each wins the game. In case of equality, there is sudden death. However, research has shown that the team that takes the first penalty has a winning percentage of 60.5, which gives an advantage to the team that wins the draw.

ABBAABBAAB
The International Football Association Board (IFAB) rules the game, experimented with an alternative system, similar to tie-breaks in tennis. Therefore, team A takes the first penalty, team B the second and third, the team has the fourth and the fifth and so on until each team took five. The sequence would continue if the shooting ended in sudden death.

Aim High
Penalties targeted at the best corners are the least saved because it is difficult for goalkeepers to cover these areas. Of the 434 penalties inflicted in 44 World Cup and European Championship matches, only 3% of shots hit halfway or more are recorded, according to the Opta statistics group. At this World Cup, none of the penalties for the best corners were saved – three failed shots missed the target.

Favored Spot
Surface penalty kicks have a high success rate, but especially when they are sent to the net and hit with a lot of venom. Cristiano Ronaldo is among the best representatives in this category – half of the 104 exact penalties he's taken in his career are aimed here. Usually, right handed players aim for this corner as it is their natural side.

Middle of the Road
Shots fired in the middle have a high conversion rate. Analysts looked at 999 penalties in the Bundesliga and concluded that 15% of players were targeting the center. Another study found that only 2% of the guards remained in the center. Since they plunged to the left or right, the guards could only save the shots that were weak and were lucky with their hind legs.

Precision of a problem
The number of punishments to the left of the goalkeeper are less numerous because it is a natural side for left-wing players, who are in the minority. The only concern with substantive penalties – left or right – is accuracy; slightly weak or misdirected, and it will land in no man's land, which will result in a rescue, as was the case with the Colombian Bacca on Tuesday.

High Risk
Shooting at the top corners also requires a high degree of technical skill. These attempts are risky because it's easy to hit them off target. Overall, at World Cups and European Championships, 18% of shots on goal missed the target. In Russia too, this happened three times, most recently during the shooting between England and Colombia,
when Mateus Uribe's shot hit the crossbar.

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