{"id":38713,"date":"2026-07-03T13:55:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T11:55:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&p=38713"},"modified":"2026-07-03T13:56:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T11:56:07","slug":"world-cup-penalty-spot-becomes-footballs-newest-classroom","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/world-cup-penalty-spot-becomes-footballs-newest-classroom\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup penalty spot becomes football\u2019s newest classroom"},"content":{"rendered":"
Penalty shootouts have always been football\u2019s cruellest mind game, a nerve-shredding walk into noise, doubt and national dread. What has changed over recent years is not the pressure, but the preparation and at this World Cup, players, coaches and goalkeepers are increasingly treating penalties less as a lottery than as a specialist discipline with enormous rewards.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Germany and the Netherlands have already learned that the hard way, exiting in the round of 32 after shootout defeats by Paraguay and Morocco. Belgium\u2019s Youri Tielemans provided the counterpoint, converting a stoppage-time penalty in extra time to complete a stunning comeback victory over Senegal.<\/div>\n
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For Geir Jordet, professor at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences and author of \u201cPressure\u201d, a book on penalty psychology, the old line that penalties are a lottery should be locked in a cupboard with old leather balls.<\/div>\n
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In a successful World Cup campaign, facing a penalty shootout is almost inevitable, Jordet told\u00a0Reuters<\/i>. \u201cTo not spend time on that is very strange,\u201d he said.<\/div>\n
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\u201cUltimately there will be a young player whose legacy will be defined by the failure in a penalty shootout, which is a massive negative emotional trauma that we\u2019re inflicting on this player as a coaching staff, as an FA, and even as a football industry.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Penalty shootouts are unforgiving and ruthless. In \u201cPressure\u201c, Jordet gathered video of all 718 shots from every men\u2019s penalty shootout at the World Cup, European Championship and Champions League from the introduction of shootouts in 1970 through 2023.<\/div>\n
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ENGLISH TRAUMA<\/div>\n
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His research found that 53% of players who missed behaved in a similar way afterwards: making themselves look smaller, falling to the ground, hiding their faces in their hands, looking down or avoiding their teammates as they walked back.<\/div>\n
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England know the trauma well.<\/div>\n
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\u201cThe England story is fascinating,\u201d Jordet said. \u201cThey lost six out of seven penalty shootouts in the \u201990s and early 2000s. And this was common knowledge in England that we go far in the tournament, we have fantastic talent, and then we lose on penalties.<\/div>\n
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\u201cSo then they took hold of this and they orchestrated something new. They created these big penalty projects they\u2019re very pioneering and innovative, comprehensive in their approach.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Under Thomas Tuchel, England are trying to keep the laboratory running.<\/div>\n
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He believes penalties come down to execution and repetitive action. \u201cThe FA has a programme in place. We follow this programme in detail, and it\u2019s just an important and very specific part of football that comes into play in knockout matches,\u201d he said.<\/div>\n
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Spain coach Luis de la Fuente was equally blunt.<\/div>\n
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\u201cKicking a penalty is not something that happens at random,\u201d he said. \u201cJust as we have specialists in free kicks, in corner kicks, we have specialists in penalties. Not everybody can shoot a penalty.<\/div>\n
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\u201cWe have to focus on the psychological aspect as well. For some of them, it\u2019s much harder, and others are just eager to shoot penalties.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Jordet\u2019s research has long focused on those tiny betrayals of stress: the hurried walk from the halfway line, the face, the whistle treated like a starting gun.<\/div>\n
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STARTING GUN<\/div>\n
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\u201cFacial expressions will indicate anxiety,\u201d Jordet said. \u201cBut the question is always, how do you deal with these emotions?\u201d<\/div>\n
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Some players, he said, want the ordeal over too quickly. \u201cThe pivotal moment for that is when the referee blows his whistle,\u201d he said. \u201cSome players look at this as like a starting gun. The ones who react to the whistle very quickly, that to me is not a particularly good sign because it could indicate that their focus is basically on their emotions and not on the task at hand.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Yet there are exceptions. Kylian Mbappe, Jordet said, is \u201cone of the quickest penalty takers in the world\u201d but remains among the best because speed is part of his entire footballing nature.<\/div>\n
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Tielemans, who used a short run-up against Senegal, said preparation had mattered as much as nerve.<\/div>\n
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\u201cWe\u2019ve been practising the last few days,\u201d the player said. \u201cIn that moment you just try to be confident and trust your abilities.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Then there are the goalkeepers, no longer the poor souls simply guessing which way to dive. Morocco\u2019s Yassine Bounou, known as Bono, has turned the duel into a confidence trick in gloves.<\/div>\n
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\u201cGoalkeepers have been through a revolution,\u201d Jordet said. \u201cGoalkeepers are more prepared. So far in this World Cup, we\u2019re seeing how goalkeepers have kind of gained a little bit of an edge by just being smarter than the penalty takers and using analytics and data better than what we have seen in the past.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Jordet said Bono\u2019s speciality is tricking the taker who waits for the goalkeeper to move.<\/div>\n
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\u201cHe has developed this into an art,\u201d Jordet said. \u201cHe has shown that against some of the top penalty takers in the world using this technique.\u201d<\/div>\n
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In the shootout that decided the Morocco v Netherlands last-32 game, two Dutch players missed the target, and another one had his attempt saved by Bono.<\/div>\n
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\u201cBono uses this double fake movement where he moves on the goal line at exactly the right moment to deceive (the taker) into believing that he\u2019s going to go to the left, but in fact he\u2019s going to the right,\u201d Jordet said.<\/div>\n
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Brazil coach Carlo Ancelotti has been treating penalties with utmost seriousness, splitting his squad into two teams for full shootout rehearsals, with players waiting on the halfway line, walking to the spot and going through the ritual while he studies body language and tendencies.<\/div>\n
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Despite all the practice and analysis, though, somewhere in this tournament another young player\u2019s career is likely to be defined by his shot from 12 yards.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2014Reuters\u2014<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":35279,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-38713","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"In a successful World Cup campaign, facing a penalty shootout is almost inevitable.","published_date":"","news_description":"In a successful World Cup campaign, facing a penalty shootout is almost inevitable.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/38713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/38713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38715,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/38713\/revisions\/38715"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=38713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}