The final of the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations between Ghana and the Ivory Coast was decided on penalties.
It came down to penalties taken by the goalkeepers and was won with the twenty-second penalty of the shoot out. The penalty taker was Boubacar Barry.
Ivory Coast won the shoot out 9 v 8.
My record of the shoot out is here.
I have been looking carefully at penalty shoot outs since listening to Tim McGarry’s presentation at a Dagstuhl seminar in 2011. He raised a very interesting question during his presentation … if you were a coach what order of penalty takers would you plan for a winning penalty shoot out?
Tim suggested that the coach should pay attention to the choice of third and fourth penalty takers. The Ivory Coast v Ghana shoot out underlines the importance of these choices.
Ghana led the shoot out 2v0 and then missed penalties 3 and 4. Ivory Coast scored their third and fourth penalties to level the shoot out 2v2.
This post updates my record of penalty shoot outs. I am interested in the actions of the penalty taker and goalkeeper. In this game:
The ninth penalty in the shoot out, taken by Andre Ayew (Ghana), appears to be an excellent example of a goalkeeper dependent penalty.
