Two Penalty Shoot Outs 2014

_IGP3381

Introduction

I enjoyed preparing and writing a post for The Conversation about penalty shoot outs at the 2014 FIFA World Cup.
This post looks at players and goalkeepers in the two penalty shoot outs to date (Brazil v Chile and Costa Rica v Greece).

Brazil v Chile

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The official record of the shoot out:
game 49 Pens
The goalkeepers in the shoot out were: Julio Cesar (Brazil) and Claudio Bravo (Chile).
Brazil took the first penalty. This is the sequence of their penalties and Claudio Bravo’s decisions:
BP
For Chile and Julio Cesar’s decisions:
CP

Costa Rica v Greece

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The official record of the shoot out:
CRGP
The goalkeepers in the shoot out were: Keylor Navas (Costa Rica) and Orestis Karnezis (Greece).
Costa Rica took the first penalty. This is the sequence of their penalties and Orestis Karnezis’s decisions:
CRP
For Greece and Keylor Nevas’s decisions:
GP

These Penalty Data

It was fascinating to see the variety of strategies used by penalty takers and goalkeepers in these shoot outs. I was impressed by the calmness of the Costa Rica team. I thought the penalties by Neymar and Mitroglou were very good examples of goalkeeper dependent penalties. They had the patience to allow the goalkeeper to move before they placed their penalty shots.
It seems to me that each goalkeeper had a plan for the penalties they were to face that may or may not have been dependent of knowledge of each penalty taker’s preference. Without over-reading each goalkeeper’s intentions it was impressive that they were able to respond to events as they unfolded. I wondered, for example, if Karnezis’s decision to dive to his left was triggered by an earlier left footed penalty (Ruiz).
I am mindful that whilst Cesar and Nevas were named as men of their matches, Gonzalo Jara and Theofanis Gekas will have quite different memories. Centimetres make enormous differences to people’s lives.

Photo Credits

_IGP3381 (seriouslysilly, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Brazil Soccer WCup Brazil Chile (Jao de Bourbon, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Costa Rica Flag (Global Panorama, CC BY-SA 2.0)

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