What’s Your Favorite Penalty Trick?

The group stage of the U19 European Championship in France concluded on Friday (check out Sarah’s post for the details). Among the made-for-YouTube fallout, was the above penalty trick by Spain’s Ezequiel Calvente.

The Real Betis midfielder came on at half-time and earned himself a penalty ten minutes later. Spain were already 2-0 up and had long been confirmed as group winners, so the pressure was off. Still, Calvente produced a fine bit of skill, faking to take the penalty with his right foot and converting with his left foot in one fluid motion. A rather impressive way to send the goalkeeper the wrong way.

Unless the goalkeeper just randomly dives to a corner, in which case the extra effort won’t yield a higher conversion rate. Here, the good old Panenka still rules supreme.

Panenka

Named after former Czech footballer Antonin Panenka, who won his country the 1976 European Championship against West Germany with this infamous chipped ball into the middle of the net. The Panenka is certainly the most famous penalty and numerous penalties in high pressure situations have been taken this way; e.g. Zidane in the 2006 World Cup final.

It might still be smart not to overdo it. Apart from goalkeepers who just won’t commit to a corner, and rely on their reaction time, quickness and weakly taken shots, there are also those who like to take notes. Franck Ribery had already panenkaed his way through the Bundesliga for a while, until he came up against Jens Lehmann, after which he decided to vary his penalty kicks again.

Cruyff

Johann Cruyff didn’t just encourage Spanish football to pass the ball to death and carry the ball into the back of the net, he also had the same idea about penalty kicks.

Nowadays, with players rushing into the penalty box in numbers to get a potential rebound, it’s a bit risky and you might not be able to complete the one-two.

Totti

This is more of a filler but some nice training ground skill by Roma’s Francesco Totti nonetheless. Maybe it can confuse the goalkeeper a bit, but otherwise it doesn’t yield any real world advantages.

Paradinha

The Paradinha was the in-thing to do in Brazil earlier this year. A lot of penalty takers will vary and break up their rhythm in the run-up to their penalty, to try and send the goalkeeper into a corner early. In case of the Paradinha this process is sometimes taken to the extreme, which also makes its’ validity questionable.

Any notable penalty trick I missed? What’s your favorite?

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Category: World Football