Penalties are not a lottery but a matter of method
Professional football continues to pretend it doesn't know
There is something deeply irrational about the way football deals with penalty kicks. For decades, coaches, managers and commentators have continued to call them a 'lottery', an almost random event, a cruel twist of fate. Yet penalties decide World Cups, European Championships, Champions Leagues and often even Championships. They determine careers, sporting assets and historical judgements. Yet they are still prepared with a superficiality that would be unthinkable for any other fundamental of the game.
No team would go to a final without having rehearsed corner kick schemes, defensive exits or building from the bottom. But when it comes to penalties, too often we proceed by improvisation, relying on individual talent or the supposed coolness of the champion. To 'whoever feels like it'.
This is a serious conceptual error.
The penalty kick is probably the most deterministic technical gesture in football. If executed correctly, it leaves the goalkeeper with minimal margins: human reaction time has insurmountable limits and, when the ball leaves with speed and precision towards the corner, the goalkeeper can only try to guess and often it is not enough. Yet we continue to witness theatrical (sometimes comical) chases, hesitations and impromptu solutions that seem to belong more to a psychological play than to a professional sporting discipline. The most frequent objection is always the same: 'If Baggio or Baresi made a mistake, then anyone can make a mistake'.
But the correct conclusion is another.
If even the greatest have made mistakes, it means that talent does not replace specific preparation. It makes it even more necessary.
Modern teams invest millions in data analysis, athletic preparation and nutrition. They monitor the athletes' sleep and every physical parameter available. Yet too often they arrive at penalties without truly proven specialists.
It is a paradox.
In no other professional field would one accept that a decisive procedure is left to improvisation. In football, on the other hand, a season can be decided by players who have rehearsed that gesture too little in relation to its importance.
