Hahnemann and penalties

[savage 4 england]

I don't understand this thread. Why are we critising Marcus for not saving a well taken penalty?

[Boston Royal]

How about Norwich away?
Or are you not counting it as a save when the Keeper pressures the taker to put the ball wide.

Both my kids are keepers so we would definitely count that as a save! I do believe that keepers can adopt various techniques, which increase the pressure on the penalty taker and therefore the chances of them putting it high or wide.

A technique my two adopt is to start off standing visibly closer to the side of the goal that the taker would normally favour i.e. with a right footed taker they will stand nearer to their right hand post. This tempts the taker to open up and go for the opposite side of the goal. However, as the taker begins his run up, the keeper starts to move back towards the centre of goal. At kids level (not guaranteeing it would work with pros!) this leads to a very high ratio of kicks being put high, wide or saved by the keeper.

In my view penalties are very much about mind games and anything the keeper can do to put doubt/uncertainty/distraction into the mind of the taker helps start to even out the odds, which initially are pretty much stacked in favour of the keeper.

As for the stutter in Keane's run up mentioned by others, I'm pretty sure Darren Caskey often adopted a similar approach when taking penalties.

I agree fully about mind games and misses being credited to the keeper, but then I'm biased as I'm a keeper (some of the time). I sometimes do what RoyalBlue describes above. Another tactic is to start in the middle, during the run-up motion that you're going to the left, and then dive to the right. If he's putting it to your right anyway, you've got a chance of saving it because you're diving to your right; if he intended to put it to your left, you may cause him to change his mind and put it to your right or miss the target. Of course you have to time the fake correctly, and a steel-minded penalty taker should pick his spot and not waver, but as we've seen even internationals lose their nerve.

In addition to Caskey, Tony Thorpe also stuttered in the one penalty he took for us (against Preston). It's perfectly legitimate, just as keepers' antics are.

[SpaceCruiser]

I don't understand this thread. Why are we critising Marcus for not saving a well taken penalty?

I don't think that was the original point of this thread, it was just somebody asking about Hahneman's track record in saving penalties.

[Maguire]

I don't understand this thread. Why are we critising Marcus for not saving a well taken penalty?

I don't think that was the original point of this thread, it was just somebody asking about Hahneman's track record in saving penalties.

Exactly.

Keane's penalty was a good one.