PANENKA PENALTY

I was coaching our junior girls on Wednesday last; a cold rainy evening. The girls are resilient and just get on with things. They apologise to each other if they collide, tackle or trip each other and treat one another like human beings! On one occasion last week, two girls had a "coming together" and fell gracefully as a duet to the grassy ground. As they recovered getting onto their hands and knees one looked down at her friends hands and said "I like your nails". What a classic moment!

Looking good of course is very important in football as our heroes on the pitch have to prove. None are more concerned about their appearance than Joe Hart whose is the figure "head", so to speak, of Head and Shoulders. (cue www.headandshoulders.co.uk) No dandruff Harty.

Joe is a good penalty stopper and an article in the paper today about Hart's technique, which might prove valuable in the upcoming tournament, used the words "Pirlo's....most woundingly casual Panenka." Making reference to the penalty taken by Andrea Pirlo against Hart in the the 2012 European Championship in Kiev. We lost.

The Panenka is a delicately disguised chipped penalty taken by deceiving the goalkeeper who thinks the shot is going into a corner of the goal. You have to give the keeper the eyes and keep looking before meeting the ball with confidence, chipping it centrally. It takes "balls" to do it!

Hart has made a number of important penalty saves against Ronaldinho in 2013, Lampard in the same month, Messi in a Champions League game in 2015 and Ibrahimovic recently against PSG. How often has he met a player with the composure of Pirlo?

His save rate in the Premier League is 26.3% 7th in the list. Bosnich tops it with 33.3%

So we know about the saves and I am sure there is a psychology behind it all; but what about the Panenka?

Antonin Panenka is 67 years old and is President of the Bohemians Praha in the Czech republic.
He played for the club from Youth level through till 1981 and then went to Rapid Wien, VSE St. Polten and finished his playing career in Austria. He represented his country 59 times between 1973-82 and won acclaim for his cheeky penalty scored against the Germans in Belgrade in the UEFA Euro Cup in 1976. At 4-3 up in penalties after an extra time 2-2 draw, his fifth penalty was softly chipped to the middle of the goal as the German keeper dived away from the centre of the goal. One journalist referred to this as "poet of a goal".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd1Hr96IenI

In 1980 he was made Czech Footballer of the Year and helped his team to 3rd in the Euro Championships.

Josh Stones scored a Panenka against Juventus in the International Champions Cup in 2013 and those who have successfully missed using the technique include Neymar and van Persie.
Here are some more good and bad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rO-Q8seyktw