Julie Ertz announced her retirement from international soccer following today's loss.
2023 FIFA Women's World Cup Thread
They were pretty dominant in the second half against Netherlands. They only gave up 2 shots on goal for the whole tournament
Can some soccer enthusiasts please help this casual soccer fan? Why wouldn’t it be infinitely more entertaining to watch penalty kicks if they moved the dot back to a distance that resulted in a lower % of PK’s succeeding instead of 80%? I understand a PK during the game for a foul needs to have a high success rate to reward the team that has been fouled but in overtime I don’t get it. It’s so unsatisfying to watch the goaltender have to literally guess instead of react. This isn’t the way to let these incredible athletes display their skill, is it? Move it to a distance that requires a great strike to score and disincentives the goalie to flail at nothing by guessing wrong.
Honestly the spot they have it is probably the most fair for either side. And really it's only used in knockout rounds of tournament play. I have a friend whose a former goalkeeper and he said he's surprised players don't get more upper 90 (as in top left or right corner of the goal) as it's the one spot you're virtually guaranteed that the keeper won't be able to stop it. That being said, it's also possible that a player overshoots the net and completely misses, which is why they go for the lower risk plays closer to the ground.
True but many keepers know the tendencies of the opposing players and will tend to go which direction they think the ball will go.
And the opposing players know the keepers know their tendencies, so, after taking that into account, are just as likely to go the other direction.
It's still a guessing game.
I agree with Illinoise....If you had the kicker shooting from farther out it would be less of a guessing game and more of a one v one skill challenge....Maybe at a distance where it's around a 50/50 chance would make each kick more exciting, rather than having the80% expectation it will go in
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Not necessarily. Depends on how fancy the opposing players are. You see something similar in hockey as well.
That's why they give 30 minutes extra time; to resolve the game on the pitch. But TV broadcasts need predictable end times, so the penalty kicks.
As to distance, if you move it back the keeper will be able to wait for the kick before they commit, and score rate would plummet. Knowing that if the keeper moves the way the ball is kicked, it may well be saved, is what makes Penalties pins-and-needles viewing. Know what sucks? Watching the kicker miss the goal entirely...which would happen a lot more often if you moved the ball back.
These are world class athletes and the margin for error is already so thin that there were multiple misses and multiple saves in the US-Sweden final. The ball is far enough back that if you don't kick HARD the keeper will get there. That's why there's still misses. It's a knife edge balance already, I think. But you're right, it isn't satisfying the way winning it on the pitch would be. Blame tv.
I guess I need to just let this go. When I watch PKs to end a World Cup game I sense I am on some reality show, where everyone else is told to pretend this makes sense, to try and drive me insane.
I guess you seem to be saying that letting the keeper actually have a chance to react to the shot instead of guess would give the goalie an unfair advantage. That is what I don’t get. Doesn’t that just make it more sporting? Having the success rate about 50% would make way more sense to me. Find a distance that allows the goalie to react instead of guess. Your comment about a kick having to be struck HARD is not really true. I’ve watched plenty where the kick is literally rolled into the goal with the goalkeeper flailing at absolutely nothing.
I mean, nobody likes ending a game on penalties, but when alternatives were workshopped you wound up with this:
^This. Many of us on here will remember how upset certain people were online when the men's World Cup final went to extra time and then PKs during the Fox NFL Sunday pregame show. Luckily they were able to get most of what they needed to done before the Noon kickoffs.
The only people who like that are orthopedic surgeons.
I know PKs are never going to be perfect. I just can’t believe that they wouldn’t be more entertaining from a little farther back. Nothing better than a perfect kick to the top corner.
Yeah, like there is a spot in between current situation and whatever the hell MLS was going for that I think would emphasize more skill than guessing which way your opponent is going to kick. As it is now is slightly better than rock, paper, scissors.
Yes but then why abandon the sudden death aspect of extra time? The absolute worst is a 0-0 draw at the end of regulation followed by a 1-1 draw heading to PKs.
They did golden goal briefly in FIFA competition. For almost a decade. It was last used in the 2002 World Cup.
Right, I just don't like that they went away from it.
And thanks for all the updates here, it is appreciated!
Honestly, golden goal is okay if you're playing at the high school or college level but there's too much randomness on the pro level for it to be used. That's why it's better to do the 30 minutes of extra time and then the PKs, if needed.
50/50 for which two athletes?
If you don't kick HARD and the goalie goes your way, they'll save. If they dive the wrong way they won't. But if the kicker was going HARD for the top corner, they may miss regardless of what the goalie does.
Perhaps the real issue is the fact that it's such a low scoring game that it's not uncommon to be scoreless or 1-1 after 120 minutes of play. Perhaps the easiest resolution is to avoid penalty kicks entirely by making the goal 18" wider. More scoring during regular play.
Spain-Netherlands getting fun late in the 2nd half.
More scoring during regular play is definitely something I would appreciate in soccer. What the best way to go about that is, I have no idea. It would definitely reduce the number of games going to PKs.
I want to eliminate the incentive for the goalie to guess on PKs in extra time. Move the dot back to a point where the goalie says “If you make a great shot I’m probably not going to save it, but I’m going to make you make that great shot. I’m not going to guess where the ball is going”. Right now the goalies are saying “I know I can’t stop you unless I guess where you are going”.
If you moved the dot back 2 or 3 yards it would reward skill more than the current rock, paper, scissors exercise the goalies go through now. I would have to see that be less satisfying than the current set up to be convinced.
Isn't a version of this essentially what hockey goalies are doing at this point?
Spain vs. England in the final on Sunday.
bdutts
- Houston, Texas
Penalty shooters start at the center line and skate in closer to the net (the shooters have to keep moving forward until they shoot). Success rate on penalty shots is about 33% based on the data I saw.