I have a question for all of my knowledgable soccer fans out there.....
So i have watched 3 penalty kicks so far this year. One was by rinaldo and he kicked to one side of the goal and the goalie dove the other way and it was a wide open easy goal for rinaldo.
Then i saw messi kick to one side of the goal and the goalie dove to that same side and blocked it.
Then i saw one other dude (cant remember his name) who kicked it way over the goal and the goalie dove to one side of the goal.
On all three attempts the goalie picked a side to dive to and dove that way.... They made the decision of which side to dive to before the ball was kicked. (im assuming because there is no time to react if you wait for the ball to be kicked)
I have seen the same thing happen over and over again in years past.
So, as the kicker, it seems that if you kick to the right you have a nearly 50% chance that the goal will be open (goalie choses to dive to the left) and if you kick to the left you have a nearly 50% chance that the goal will be open (goalie chooses to dive to the right). But why not just kick it nice and easy right down the middle? Seems like that way you have a nearly 100 percent chance that the goal will be open and you dont even need to kick it very hard since the goalie will have already jumped to one side of the goal. In all three penalty kicks i have seen so foar this year kicking it softly straight to the middle of the goal would have been the best decision every time yet no one did it that way. Why is that?
