World Cup 2022 | Why so many missed penalties?

You are the attacker. Me, the guardian. Shoot from the penalty spot, 11 yards from the net. You will outsmart me almost every time.

The penalty is one of the easiest sporting actions to succeed. Even among professionals, against goalkeepers who deploy arms as long as satellite panels, shooters count three-quarters of the time.

However, since the start of the World Cup in Qatar, players have failed like never before. They only managed 65% of the penalties awarded following a foul. For shootouts, it’s even worse: the success rate is only 60%. A record of mediocrity.

It’s not because the shooters are untalented. Among those who missed a penalty in Qatar are 2 of the top 10 scorers in history (Lionel Messi and Robert Lewandowski), as well as last year’s Premier League top scorer Harry Kane. It puts into perspective the unfortunate blow of the Canadian Alphonso Davies, against the Belgians.

If you can beat me 95% of the time at the pitch around the corner, how do you explain that infinitely more talented players miss a move that seems so simple?

Several researchers have recently studied the success and failure factors of penalties. In particular Geir Jordet, a brilliant Norwegian professor specializing in sports science.

The latter spent five years of his life dissecting all the World Cup, Euro and Copa America penalty shootouts between 1976 and 2004. It seems simple, but surprisingly, the information was difficult to find. . He had to work with collectors to find them on old video tapes. In total, he recorded 403 shots.

Jordet then wrote everything down. When I say everything, that’s really everything. The strong foot, the angle of attack, the number of seconds taken by the shooter to get to the penalty spot, the type of celebration after the goal, etc. He also collected testimonies from shooters.

His main conclusion: “Psychology has a greater impact on the outcome of a penalty than a player’s skills or physicality. »

The statistics are telling. The greater the stake, the more anxious the shooter. And the more anxious the shooter, the lower his chances of scoring. This is why, historically, success rates are lower at the World Cup than in other competitions.

Isn’t it more because of the quality of the goalkeepers?

No, suggests Professor Jordet’s study. Goalkeepers at the Copa America, for example, save more penalty kicks than those at the World Cup. The difference is in shots that don’t even hit the target, as was the case for Kane last weekend when he shot over the net.

Let’s go back to the anguish of the shooter at the moment of the penalty. According to Jordet’s compilation, the further you progress in the shootout, the more the success rate drops. So the fourth shooter scores less often than the third, who scores less often than the second, who scores less often than the first. Only exception: the fifth shooter, better than the fourth by a quarter of a hair. It’s logic. The stake increases after each shot. Stress, too.

Another piece of evidence: a player who shoots for the win will be successful 90% of the time. Again, that makes sense. He knows that if he misses, his team will get another chance. Conversely, when a shooter absolutely has to score to avoid the elimination of his country, the success rate drops to 60%.

So much for the numbers. Now, that doesn’t explain why the players are so bad this year.

A hypothesis: the World Cup in Qatar is more stressful than that of 1986. Or that of 2002. First, more people are interested in it. In several countries represented in Doha, the market shares of national team matches are over 75%. It is enormous.

Then there is the power of social media. It’s true, we can ignore them. Except that Gen Z gamers were born with this technology. Their Snapchat, TikTok or Instagram accounts are their main communication tools. It allows them to communicate with supporters without an intermediary, but it also exposes them more easily to criticism.

In 1986, if a player was bad, he was booed in the stadium and flayed by a handful of columnists. Then it was over. Today, millions of supporters can smear them on social media — and even send insults directly to their inboxes. It causes additional stress.

Another recent phenomenon, which may explain the drop in the penalty success rate, is the use of detailed statistics. In 2010, four men approached the Dutch national team to sell them data on the preferences of opposing shooters. It was in the wake of Moneyball. At the time, this approach was considered revolutionary.

Today ? Any respectable team has this information, and uses it. It can hurt a shooter’s chances of success, the same way a batter in baseball can be disadvantaged by a special defense deployed against him. Hence the importance for shooters to diversify their arsenal and practice their art.

Before arriving in Qatar, Spain head coach Luis Enrique had his players take 1,000 shots. “I don’t believe the shootout is a lottery. These are specific skills. If you practice often, you will improve these skills,” he explained.

It can even go as far as repeating the walk to the penalty spot, says author Ben Lyttleton, in the latest issue of Sports Illustrated. It is a subject that he masters well; he was one of the authors of the study delivered to the Netherlands at the 2010 World Cup.

In his article, he recalls that the head coach of South Korea at the 2002 World Cup, Guus Hiddink, asked his players to simulate walking towards the penalty spot before an important match. The next day, the Koreans won 5-3 in the penalty shootout. Last week, we saw players from the Netherlands trying to disturb an Argentinian in his walk. This action also earned Denzel Dumfries a yellow card.

The penalty is therefore not just a stroke of luck, as argued by those who miss it. It is a skill that can and should be developed. As Ben Lyttleton so aptly explains, “Targeted training and an emphasis on psychology cannot guarantee success. But they will improve a team’s chances of winning. »