EURO 2008

[luukje]

A penalty is just pure pressure for the shooter. In practice the goal looks so big and the keeper so tiny. When the heat is on, that keeper seems to double in size, his arms grow inches by the second, and those posts seem to get closer and closer to each other (even more so in a shoot-out compared with a normal matchplay situation).

I kicked my first and last official penalty when I was 13 or 14, to win our local club youth tourney...and missed by two or three yards. I have always been a good kicker (free kicks and corners are my thing) but I have refused any penalty since then.

Better to get some 90 kg brainless centre back just ramming the ball home, than a shaky nervy type like me.

and roger: ROFL

[Sporting_Lisbon]

Defending penalties does take skill, as there are penalty shootouts where the keeper defends like 3 penalties.

[KingKaramazov]

Of course defending a penalty takes skill. It takes enormous amounts of skill. The fact that it's so hard is why it mostly comes down to luck, because most of the time the goalie just has to pick a direction to dive in and hope that he happens to fall in the direction of the shot.

A penalty kick is far easier for the shooter to make than it is for the goalie to save. Far, far easier. Yes, there are people who suck at penalty kicks, and there's a lot of pressure. Nevertheless, a whole lot of luck is involved in penalty kicks. That's all I'm saying.

[djdan]

[quote=""KingKaramazov""]it mostly comes down to luck, because most of the time the goalie just has to pick a direction to dive in and hope that he happens to fall in the direction of the shot.[/quote]
This is not really true, as a keeper you what the players eyes, a lot of the time they give an indication of where they are going, some of the best PK takers can fool you but a lot of the time you can actually tell where they are going.

[kingchrisII]

i take pks for my team they are nervy yeah!

[scoop10]

top semi final lucky lucky germans......

maybe spain v russia will be 2-0???

[BenS64]

yeah germans were lucky(i was hopeing for a turkey russia final)!!

[KingKaramazov]

Yea me too Ben.

It was tough to see the Turkish lose, especially after they got that equalizer in the 86th minute.

The fact that they did so well against Germany was amazing though, considering how many players they were missing. I think they were definitely the better team, amazingly enough (you would not think so considering Germany's good players).

Well now I'm just hoping Spain or Russia wins it. I don't care who goes on tomorrow.

[Roger_The_Rogue]

How did Germany win? All I see is that Turkey is far much better team and could have scored much more goals. Germany is lucky to have a great goalkeeper. Looking forward to tonight game. Hope that it is not as boring as Spain vs Italy game.

[ruminator]

[quote=""Roger_The_Rogue""]How did Germany win? All I see is that Turkey is far much better team and could have scored much more goals. Germany is lucky to have a great goalkeeper. Looking forward to tonight game. Hope that it is not as boring as Spain vs Italy game.[/quote]

Lehmann didn't look exactly great on that first Turkey goal though did he?!

[Sporting_Lisbon]

Turkey almost got it

[huGGy]

Lehmann didn't play very well overall. But Germany never had a goalkeeper problem. The beginning was horrible, too slow, too far away etc. The win was a lucky one, though i never felt like turkey would win this game. Dunno why.

[Roger_The_Rogue]

I mean that he did save lots of goals. Huggy, do you mean that he play below his average? If so then he must be great at top of his game! Well, I'll have to watch more soccer in order to be able to tell the difference. What soccer games to you recommend me to watch after Euro?

[Soccerman771]

[quote=""Roger_The_Rogue""]I mean that he did save lots of goals. Huggy, do you mean that he play below his average? If so then he must be great at top of his game! Well, I'll have to watch more soccer in order to be able to tell the difference. What soccer games to you recommend me to watch after Euro?[/quote]

Try to watch the English Premier League or the Spanish League is what I would recommend. Also try to catch as many world cup qualifiers that you can.

Turkey wasn't the better team yesterday. I'm sorry, but they weren't. They may have been more aggressive, but they tried to win it 1v1 too many times. Their keeper lost them the game no doubt about it.

Germany came out too slow and played too flat. They need to fix the defense asap. If they don't either Spain or Russia could beat them quite easily I'm afraid. I'm hoping for Russia to pull through today..

[Sporting_Lisbon]

I expected much more of Germany tho.