How do you prepare for a penalty shoot-out?
How do you recreate the atmosphere and tension of the occasion on a training ground?
Before the World Cup started I spoke with one of the most successful penalty takers of all time to discuss what the shoot-out business is all about.
Ray Stewart came from a generation of full-backs who stuck away penalties with ease to the shame of their striking team-mates.
The Scottish full-back scored 84 times for West Ham, mostly from the penalty spot, including an incredible 13 penalties during the 1981/82.
Stewart had a unique way of practising his penalty taking, he revealed: “I’d practise my penalties a lot and that had a part in my success with them. I was always confident. If you’re confident it doesn’t matter who the goalie is you’ll stick them away.
“After training I’d practise penalties by placing cones a bit less than a yard inside the post, I didn’t want to practise against a goalkeeper. I felt that was important, when I took my penalties I didn’t think about the goalie.
“People ask me about the penalty at Wembley but that didn’t mean so much because we lost in the replay against Liverpool.
“When we won the FA Cup in 1980 I scored the winning goal against Aston Villa, it was against Jimmy Rimmer and the penalty took us through and we went on to lift the cup.”
He added: “You can prepare as much as you like for penalties but other things can happen, you can hit your best ever penalty and the goalie will pull off a save.
“I’d normally blast my penalties but in the last minute of a League Cup Final against Liverpool I changed from my usual routine. Ray Clemence dived one way and I just rolled it into the other corner.”
One of the best remembered World Cup shoot-outs was during Italia 90 when Pat Bonner emerged as the hero helping Jack Charlton’s side into a last eight date with Italy by beating Romania.
The shoot-out came just over a month after Celtic had lost on penalties to Aberdeen in the final of the Scottish Cup with Bonner admitting that he used that experience to his advantage for Ireland.
He said: “In the Scottish Cup final I went the right way for one of nine penalties against Aberdeen so when I came back I sat with Gerry Peyton (Bonner’s international deputy) and we talked about it.
“Gerry was older than me, he was more experienced and we came up with a bit of a formula on how somebody would run up to the ball and where they were going to hit the penalties. The first penalty I went the right way. Second and third penalty? The right way. I just made contact on the fourth but they were all good, good penalties.
“When Daniel Timofte stepped up, he walked up very, very slowly and he didn’t look confident. I was high on confidence because I’d been going the right way and the last penalty had just grazed my fingertips.
“His penalty wasn’t a great penalty if you look at it. He stood at an acute angle so I had my mind made up where I was going because that was the formula we had worked out in our heads. It was about a metre off the ground and didn’t have fantastic pace like the others.
“Everything was going for it. If it was the first penalty or second penalty you’d still have another three or four to go and there was a great chance the pressure might build and we might miss one ourselves, so it was the perfect one to save. It wasn’t a perfect penalty but it was the one if you were going to save it.”
You can almost detect the English media hoping for a penalty shoot-out today to help banish the demons of the past- should their team deliver an unlikely win.
Regardless of the outcome this afternoon Argentina, Brazil and Spain stand between England and a place in the final- where they may face another penalty shoot-out…
I laugh when I read that it’s no good practising penalty kicks because there isn’t ‘the same pressure’ as taking a penalty in a game situation.
If we apply this logic to every skill in football or indeed any sport then we shouldn’t bother practising any skill.
Why bother practising tackling, or passing, or strikng the ball as there isn’t the same pressure as in a live game?
I think most professional players and the training staff at their clubs seem to believe in this way of looking at things, especially when it comes to striking the ball.
For every well struck and on target strike on goal, there are twenty which fly over the cross bar or nearly hit the corner flag.
If a professional golfer was as wayward in his striking of the ball he would pretty soon be returned to the amateur ranks again.
But not professional footballers.
They simply show annoyance then carry on as if there’s nothing can be done about it.
But there is!
Ask the best ball striker at your club to show you how it’s done, and then….
Practice, Practice, Practice!
It’ll be too simple for some I know!