Tuesday, March 24, 2009

The Lottery of Penalties

Croatia boss Slaven Bilic: "Penalties are a lottery and the players felt confident enough to take the spot kicks."
Redknapp's post-match attitude was that penalties are a "lottery"
Max Tonetto: “We played a great game, and unfortunately we were punished by the lottery of penalties.”

There is not much research on this area. This paper implies
The research shows that the individual goal-scoring skills do play a role in scoring goals from penalties and that the result is not exclusively a matter of luck… The belief that a penalty shootout is a lottery made players more receptive to the negative consequences of anxiety-caused stress.”

So according to Geir Jordet and Esther Hartman's research not only is a penalty kick not a lottery but saying it is hurts your team.

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