Eimear Ryan: The simple joy of a penalty shootout

There is one aspect of soccer that makes me cackle and clap my hands like a kid on Christmas morning, and that is the penalty shootout

Wed, 14 Dec, 2022 - 15:30

Eimear Ryan

I’ve been trying not to get sucked into this World Cup. While I’m still a bit uneasy about the moral dubiousness of the whole enterprise, I haven’t succeeded in boycotting it entirely. And in all honesty, at this sleepy, restful time of year, I would rather be on the couch watching various entries in the Die Hard and Home Alone franchises with a drum of Celebrations than watching high-stakes soccer matches.

I am fascinated by soccer but it doesn’t have its emotional talons in me the way the GAA does. In a way I’m lucky, in that I won’t be torn between the World Cup final and the All-Ireland club hurling final this coming Sunday: it’s the battle of the Ballys for me, no question. But there is one aspect of soccer that makes me cackle and clap my hands like a kid on Christmas morning, and that is the penalty shootout.

Penos! I simply love them. What is it about them? Is it that they distil everything that is compelling about sport – pressure, luck, gamesmanship, heroes, villains – into an irresistible package? Is it the long walk to the spot? Is it the high-noon nature of the head-to-head format, kicker and keeper staring each other down, trying to psyche one another out? The dramatic language plays into this narrative. Shootout, sudden death: the words we use around penalties convey – even if it’s in a hyperbolic way – how they can make or break a player, a team, a nation.

Normally, when I’m watching soccer, I’m rooting for goals. Used to the GAA’s score-every-two-minutes average, I sometimes feel score-starved watching soccer. But when a game goes to extra-time, I become the biggest fan of goalies and defenders. Hoof it down the field, lads! Head it out of the box, good man! Please, gentlemen, keep your powder dry for the next 30 minutes. No one do anything to derail the delicious prospect of penalties. Let’s just get over the line.

The simplicity is a key part of it. Ordinarily, it’s no easy thing to put ourselves in the boots of Messi or Ronaldo or Van Dijk or Kane. They’re too good. They’re practically superhuman. When they line up a penalty, though, we’ve all been there – even if the goal we lined up in front of was made of jumpers, even if the keeper was Keith from fourth class. We all know what technique we’d employ, whether it’s roofing it, powering it straight down the middle, or calmly side-footing to the corner. On a lithe day, we reckon even our grannies and grandads would make a good fist of a penalty. Spot kicks are accessible and achievable in a way that so much of what pro soccer players do is not – which is what makes it all the crueller when an extremely talented, fit and wealthy professional blows it.

Penalty shootouts are also tactically fascinating from the managers’ perspective. Do you have your lineup picked in advance, or do you wait and see how things stand at the end of extra-time? It’s a similar dilemma to picking a relay team: do you put your biggest talent first to get a good start, or last to ensure a strong finish? (The latter approach is a risk, as Brazil demonstrated last week.) Both Van Dijk and Messi, as captains, showed leadership by going first in their drawn quarter-final – but is it only true leadership if you convert? Van Dijk’s miss was a blow to Dutch hopes, and Messi’s task was easier knowing that Big Virgil had just missed.

It’s a mental, psychological task more than it is a technical one. Messi often makes the keeper commit first and then simply places the ball where the keeper is not – something which requires incredible timing and agility, but most of all daring and force of will. Harry Kane was mentally prepared to take a penalty, but was he mentally prepared to take two? In trying to decide whether to stick to his original approach or change it up, did he fall between two stools?

It’s tough on the keepers, having to step in and out multiple times, but they’re at a psychological advantage in that they’re not expected to save it, not really. The odds are with the penalty-taker. If a keeper saves a penalty – or, in the case of Caoimhín Kelleher or Emiliano Martinez, saves two – he’s already performing above the odds.

If you must miss: is there a least painful way? A save is on target, but makes a hero of your opponent. Hitting the woodwork is tragic, the tightest of margins. Blasting it into the stands is a bad miss, but on your own terms: you haven’t been beaten by anyone or anything but yourself.

This much is true: everyone misses eventually. Even Messi, even Ronaldo, even Kane. Every player has a war story, everyone knows how it feels. (Is there anyone you would rather see comforting Kane than Gareth Southgate?) But again, this is why it’s so compelling. The pathos. The comfort of a team sport is that it’s rarely all on you. Even if you fumble a simple ball or miss a good opportunity, chances are that many of your teammates feel that they made mistakes, too. The burden of defeat is shared. The penalty shootout is one of the few times when it really does come down to individuals.

But as much as I love penalties, and as much as I love the GAA, the two don’t quite mesh. The beauty of the soccer shootout is, again, its simplicity: any striker should be able to score from there. But in the GAA, taking a free or a penalty is a speciality skill. That said, in a sport where scores are plentiful, where teams are all too often still level after extra time, we need a definitive way of getting a result. ‘Next score wins,’ maybe? Sometimes the playground solutions are best.