5 ms·

> and if the keeper doesn't move early they're not saving anything that isn't down the middle Most penalties are poorly taken. I hate seeing a keeper dive earl

> and if the keeper doesn't move early they're not saving anything that isn't down the middle Most penalties are poorly taken. I hate seeing a keeper dive early to a random side only to be beaten by a weak shot down the middle. I assume that keepers don't have faith in their nerves/reactions and thus have to force their bodies to dive before the shot is taken. Otherwise the best strategy for the keeper is to wait for the shot

leemailll 5y ago
Yeah, wait for the shot and always late for a save. They do this for a living, they move before ball rolling for a reason: human not fast enough for a shot from pro.
- canuckintime 5y ago
  Not fast enough for a shot from a pro, a good shot to the top right corner sure. But a penalty shot straight down the middle? A keeper isn't fast enough to catch that?
  - ummonk 5y ago
    Most kickers aren't going to do a penalty shot straight down the middle if the keeper is just standing still in the middle.
    - canuckintime 5y ago
      which is what I want: > I hate seeing a keeper dive early to a random side only to be beaten by a weak shot down the middle
      - ummonk 5y ago
        So you want a keeper to just stand in the middle and never save anything while everyone shoots to the side?
        canuckintime 5y ago
        Penalty takers aren't perfect and the keeper will save a few
        ummonk 5y ago
        The keeper won't save as many. You're arguing that the keeper should carry out a suboptimal (non-Nash equilibrium) strategy just to satisfy your aesthetic preferences?
daleharvey 5y ago
Have you considered that the few people who have managed to rise to the top of one of the most competitive fields in the world, as well as the clubs who have have many millions of pounds depending on the result of a penalty kick ... may possibly be better at taking penalty kicks, and are more aware of the best strategy than yourself?
- hogFeast 5y ago
  Welcome to HN. You see these kind of posts on every topic (I have had first-hand knowledge of a certain event, and you come on here and someone will tell you with authority that you are wrong...and actually X/Y/Z happened...this place is very unique). What people also underestimate is how hard professionals hit the ball, without looking like they are hitting it hard. I had a relatively hard shot, I have injured GKs in pens, I trained with a guy who was once a reserve keeper for a lower division professional side (retired a few years)...I didn't come close to scoring because my shots were nowhere near hard enough. Free kicks are the same, you see the shot in slow-mo, it looks like they are swatting the ball softly...in reality, their technique is so good/efficient that they are crushing it whilst aiming it carefully. Most professional clubs employ people who just look at penalties. They look at techniques, they look at strategies...saying that the keeper should wait for the ball when it is going 70mph and you have under 100ms to decide is...ludicrous.
  - canuckintime 5y ago
    C'mon, I literally said the same conclusion that keeper's reactions aren't good enough. > I assume that keepers don't have faith in their nerves/reactions and thus have to force their bodies to dive before the shot is taken.
    - hogFeast 5y ago
      Yes, and I am saying no-one has reactions that fast. Professionals hit the ball 70-80mph...up the chain someone said that keepers should just wait and see where it is going: this isn't humanly possible, there isn't enough time. What they do is: statistical analysis of every penalty taker to see what preference they have (what corner, what they do home/away, what they do when they are facing a goal at a certain end, etc.) and most professional goalkeepers are pretty much experts in watching how players run up to the ball, how the taker's eyes move, how they position their body, how they position their non-striking leg (and strikers counter this: you will notice that most professional takers will look at the ball when they put it down, turn away from the keeper when they walk back, usually keep looking at the ball or directly at the keeper before they start running, and not look away from the ball when running up...there are reasons for this). And clubs will analyse videos of taker tendencies, and keeper tendencies.
arcturus17 5y ago
> Most penalties are poorly taken. According to a study of over 100,000 penalties by InStat, about 75% end up in goal [1] It's easy to argue therefore that they fulfill their objective within the rules of football: to concede significantly positive scoring odds to an opponent who has otherwise been denied the opportunity to do so. From what perspective are most penalties poorly taken? Classical mechanics, aesthetics...? [1] https://instatsport.com/football/article/penalty_research https://instatsport.com/football/article/penalty_research
- canuckintime 5y ago
  Aesthetics wise. It's a 'penalty' shot, it'd be pretty ineffective penalty i.e. punishment if the shot wasn't often successful. So I'm unhappy with the Aesthetics because keepers know it's largely successful and just guess and jump the gun (or study the stats of the takers and then... just guess) which in turn let's the the takers focus on faking out the keeper with stutter steps and weird run ups. I prefer to see penalties where the kicker focuses on the skill of putting it in a spot nd the keeper responds to that. They instituted (or started enforcing) the rule that keepers can't jump off the line before the kick is taken. For purely aesthetic reasons, I'd like something similar so they react to the ball instead of guessing
  - arcturus17 5y ago
    The rule revision you're alluding to is merely focused on the statistical outcomes and advantage distributions, and not aesthetics. > I prefer to see penalties where the kicker focuses on the skill of putting it in a spot nd the keeper responds to that It's fine that you prefer this, but this isn't what the penalty rule is about. The rule is balanced so that you create a sufficient advantage for the taker. If you pile requirements on the taker, you probably need to compensate with other advantages (ex: take the penalty from 10m instead of 11m). I can see why this is not something that FIFA would want to touch, ever.
    - canuckintime 5y ago
      > If you pile requirements on the taker, The requirement is actually for the keeper not the tacker. But yes, I know I'm tilting at windmills
yk 5y ago
If you look at the numbers, a decently hard shot has the ball travel faster than 20 m/s, so the ball is at the goal line 0.5 seconds after the shot. Now, that means the goalie has to travel at something like 7 m/s. For comparison, the long jump world record traveled at 10 m/s, but not from a running start. [0] So allowing for reaction time and some delay because the ball need to travel a bit distance before one can see which direction it travels, it is simply not possible to react to a well shot penalty. However, that is numbers for professional sports. In amateur, the ball will be shot at a somewhat lower velocity, and importantly, amateurs are a lot less likely to actually shoot a well placed penalty. So in lower leagues, it is a more reasonable strategy to try to react to the ball. [0] https://www.wired.com/2012/08/long-jump-air-density/ https://www.wired.com/2012/08/long-jump-air-density/
notahacker 5y ago
Most weak shots down the middle (by competent penalty takers that aren't a bag of nerves) are a conscious reaction to the keeper moving to the side the player hoped to slot his penalty. If the keeper doesn't move, the ball is comfortably stroked/smashed past him on that side.
sk0g 5y ago
The average penalty kick crosses the line in about 700 milliseconds. Doesn't sound humanly possible to assess the flight of the ball, prepare your footing, and then finally dive up to 3.5 meters to get to the ball.
coverj 5y ago
I have often thought about this, especially in penalty shoot outs where there are 4 people who aren't the "best" penalty taker that have to take one. As has been mentioned there are penalties that are just unsaveable and against an elite penalty taker maybe a goalie is better off just picking a side and taking a chance against them but against the rest of the takers I'd be thinking eliminate the chance they get a freebie by diving too early or just picking a side and force them to score the hardest penalty possible
- canuckintime 5y ago
  Riffing off your thought: Perhaps goalies should treat penalties like free kicks i.e. the goalie doesn't stand at the center of the goal and offers a far corner for the kicker to aim at? The goalie knows exactly where the kicker should be placing the ball and if the kicker is perfect accurate it's a goal but if the kicker is off then the goalie should save it?

leemailll 5y ago

Yeah, wait for the shot and always late for a save. They do this for a living, they move before ball rolling for a reason: human not fast enough for a shot from pro.

canuckintime 5y ago
Not fast enough for a shot from a pro, a good shot to the top right corner sure. But a penalty shot straight down the middle? A keeper isn't fast enough to catch that?
- ummonk 5y ago
  Most kickers aren't going to do a penalty shot straight down the middle if the keeper is just standing still in the middle.
  - canuckintime 5y ago
    which is what I want: > I hate seeing a keeper dive early to a random side only to be beaten by a weak shot down the middle
    - ummonk 5y ago
      So you want a keeper to just stand in the middle and never save anything while everyone shoots to the side?
      - canuckintime 5y ago
        Penalty takers aren't perfect and the keeper will save a few
        ummonk 5y ago
        The keeper won't save as many. You're arguing that the keeper should carry out a suboptimal (non-Nash equilibrium) strategy just to satisfy your aesthetic preferences?

daleharvey 5y ago

Have you considered that the few people who have managed to rise to the top of one of the most competitive fields in the world, as well as the clubs who have have many millions of pounds depending on the result of a penalty kick ... may possibly be better at taking penalty kicks, and are more aware of the best strategy than yourself?

hogFeast 5y ago
Welcome to HN. You see these kind of posts on every topic (I have had first-hand knowledge of a certain event, and you come on here and someone will tell you with authority that you are wrong...and actually X/Y/Z happened...this place is very unique). What people also underestimate is how hard professionals hit the ball, without looking like they are hitting it hard. I had a relatively hard shot, I have injured GKs in pens, I trained with a guy who was once a reserve keeper for a lower division professional side (retired a few years)...I didn't come close to scoring because my shots were nowhere near hard enough. Free kicks are the same, you see the shot in slow-mo, it looks like they are swatting the ball softly...in reality, their technique is so good/efficient that they are crushing it whilst aiming it carefully. Most professional clubs employ people who just look at penalties. They look at techniques, they look at strategies...saying that the keeper should wait for the ball when it is going 70mph and you have under 100ms to decide is...ludicrous.
- canuckintime 5y ago
  C'mon, I literally said the same conclusion that keeper's reactions aren't good enough. > I assume that keepers don't have faith in their nerves/reactions and thus have to force their bodies to dive before the shot is taken.
  - hogFeast 5y ago
    Yes, and I am saying no-one has reactions that fast. Professionals hit the ball 70-80mph...up the chain someone said that keepers should just wait and see where it is going: this isn't humanly possible, there isn't enough time. What they do is: statistical analysis of every penalty taker to see what preference they have (what corner, what they do home/away, what they do when they are facing a goal at a certain end, etc.) and most professional goalkeepers are pretty much experts in watching how players run up to the ball, how the taker's eyes move, how they position their body, how they position their non-striking leg (and strikers counter this: you will notice that most professional takers will look at the ball when they put it down, turn away from the keeper when they walk back, usually keep looking at the ball or directly at the keeper before they start running, and not look away from the ball when running up...there are reasons for this). And clubs will analyse videos of taker tendencies, and keeper tendencies.

arcturus17 5y ago

> Most penalties are poorly taken. According to a study of over 100,000 penalties by InStat, about 75% end up in goal [1] It's easy to argue therefore that they fulfill their objective within the rules of football: to concede significantly positive scoring odds to an opponent who has otherwise been denied the opportunity to do so. From what perspective are most penalties poorly taken? Classical mechanics, aesthetics...? [1] https://instatsport.com/football/article/penalty_research https://instatsport.com/football/article/penalty_research

canuckintime 5y ago
Aesthetics wise. It's a 'penalty' shot, it'd be pretty ineffective penalty i.e. punishment if the shot wasn't often successful. So I'm unhappy with the Aesthetics because keepers know it's largely successful and just guess and jump the gun (or study the stats of the takers and then... just guess) which in turn let's the the takers focus on faking out the keeper with stutter steps and weird run ups. I prefer to see penalties where the kicker focuses on the skill of putting it in a spot nd the keeper responds to that. They instituted (or started enforcing) the rule that keepers can't jump off the line before the kick is taken. For purely aesthetic reasons, I'd like something similar so they react to the ball instead of guessing
- arcturus17 5y ago
  The rule revision you're alluding to is merely focused on the statistical outcomes and advantage distributions, and not aesthetics. > I prefer to see penalties where the kicker focuses on the skill of putting it in a spot nd the keeper responds to that It's fine that you prefer this, but this isn't what the penalty rule is about. The rule is balanced so that you create a sufficient advantage for the taker. If you pile requirements on the taker, you probably need to compensate with other advantages (ex: take the penalty from 10m instead of 11m). I can see why this is not something that FIFA would want to touch, ever.
  - canuckintime 5y ago
    > If you pile requirements on the taker, The requirement is actually for the keeper not the tacker. But yes, I know I'm tilting at windmills

yk 5y ago

If you look at the numbers, a decently hard shot has the ball travel faster than 20 m/s, so the ball is at the goal line 0.5 seconds after the shot. Now, that means the goalie has to travel at something like 7 m/s. For comparison, the long jump world record traveled at 10 m/s, but not from a running start. [0] So allowing for reaction time and some delay because the ball need to travel a bit distance before one can see which direction it travels, it is simply not possible to react to a well shot penalty. However, that is numbers for professional sports. In amateur, the ball will be shot at a somewhat lower velocity, and importantly, amateurs are a lot less likely to actually shoot a well placed penalty. So in lower leagues, it is a more reasonable strategy to try to react to the ball. [0] https://www.wired.com/2012/08/long-jump-air-density/ https://www.wired.com/2012/08/long-jump-air-density/

notahacker 5y ago

Most weak shots down the middle (by competent penalty takers that aren't a bag of nerves) are a conscious reaction to the keeper moving to the side the player hoped to slot his penalty. If the keeper doesn't move, the ball is comfortably stroked/smashed past him on that side.

sk0g 5y ago

The average penalty kick crosses the line in about 700 milliseconds. Doesn't sound humanly possible to assess the flight of the ball, prepare your footing, and then finally dive up to 3.5 meters to get to the ball.

coverj 5y ago

I have often thought about this, especially in penalty shoot outs where there are 4 people who aren't the "best" penalty taker that have to take one. As has been mentioned there are penalties that are just unsaveable and against an elite penalty taker maybe a goalie is better off just picking a side and taking a chance against them but against the rest of the takers I'd be thinking eliminate the chance they get a freebie by diving too early or just picking a side and force them to score the hardest penalty possible

canuckintime 5y ago
Riffing off your thought: Perhaps goalies should treat penalties like free kicks i.e. the goalie doesn't stand at the center of the goal and offers a far corner for the kicker to aim at? The goalie knows exactly where the kicker should be placing the ball and if the kicker is perfect accurate it's a goal but if the kicker is off then the goalie should save it?