UEFA Champions League 2011-2012

[Zeus]

I would agree with you that Blacks may feel less pressure than Whites. Whites have congenital "sense of shame" that is almost non-existent in Blacks.

I agree and I might add that whites have congenital "sense of shame" because we have been used to be the dominant ones, the inventors, the kings, the emperors, the explorers, the pioneers for over three thousand years of civilization and social life, while Negroes have always been slaves, socially, politically, militarily, scientifically, technologically and historically inferior and pretty much their kind has always been connected and associated with the bottom of the barrel, so of course they lack the sense of shame, just like they lack achievements, civilization, history and intelligence......How can you feel shame when you live in shame for so many thousands of years?

I believe that the vast majority of the great penalty shooters have always been white players though, no matter the rest of the factors we just talked about.

 

[frederic38]

these figures are unfair to the african teams, because to win a penalty shootout they must make it to the knockout stage first :biggrin1:

more seriously, the reason why i believe blacks have an advantage in the penalty kicks is because the typical white player will over-think (which is not good for a penalty kick), while the black player won't think at all, which is the best for scoring a penalty kick

ofcourse, it doesn't mean that there are no great white penalty kick takers, but they have to be very strong mentally to overcome the pressure, while blacks often don't have this problem

as an example, the argentine martin palermo missed 3 penalty kicks in a copa america match
llorente from bilbao did the same this season i believe
this ofcourse isn't on par with their ability to score

also do you remember the 2006 world cup final?
those french blacks all scored their penalty kicks, and some of them were totally unskilled (abidal, malouda)
and the french that missed his penalty kick was... the argentine trezeguet, probably the best french goal scorer since the 90's

for me the absolute best penalty kick taker was beckham though

If Robben really didn't want to take the PK, Lahm should have taken it. Shouldn't a captain take the ball when nobody wants to shoot and take it on himself? The captain figure is another thing that has been completely degraded in recent times.

did you see lahm's penalty kick against real madrid?
he did everything that you must avoid for a penalty kick
he ran to pick up the ball, looked stressed, he seemed to be in a hurry
i was very surprised to see him score his penalty kick in the final to be honest

 

[Matra2]

for me the absolute best penalty kick taker was beckham though

Hmm...not too sure about that. I can recall Beckham missing three penalties in a row for England between a Euro qualifying match against Turkey and England's exit on penalties against Portugal. On both occasions his kicks were better suited to the rugby pitch.

For me the greatest penalty taker of all time was Marco van Basten of Milan and the Netherlands. Though unfortunately for him the one most remember was also missed for his country in a Euro championship (1992 against Denmark).

 

[Porthos]

Hmm...not too sure about that. I can recall Beckham missing three penalties in a row for England between a Euro qualifying match against Turkey and England's exit on penalties against Portugal. On both occasions his kicks were better suited to the rugby pitch.

For me the greatest penalty taker of all time was Marco van Basten of Milan and the Netherlands. Though unfortunately for him the one most remember was also missed for his country in a Euro championship (1992 against Denmark).

Greatest penalty kicker? For me - Matt Le Tissier from Southampton (one club man). One of my favourite players. Probably one of the best English players ever, but "too technical" for the English, and therefore completely ignored by England selectors at his top, in the early 1990s. 47 scores out of 48 kicks.

 

[Zeus]

as for the penalty kicks, i think that it's one of the few things in which blacks are better than whites
because blacks can't feel the pressure

I am about to go to bed, but I couldn't overlook this. Frederic, I could not disagree with you more on this one. If you take a look at the ratios and % of the best penalty kickers of all time, there's not even a single black player in the top 20, I don't understand how you come to this conclusion really.

http://penaltyhq.com/#
http://soccerlens.com/top-ten-free-kick-specialists-of-all-time/20493/

No matter how many all time great lists I find, I do not find a single black man in the top 10.

 

[frederic38]

Hmm...not too sure about that. I can recall Beckham missing three penalties in a row for England between a Euro qualifying match against Turkey and England's exit on penalties against Portugal. On both occasions his kicks were better suited to the rugby pitch.

i remember the one against portugal, i think the replays showed that the ball moved just before the shot
i didn't know about the others, but i looked up the one against turkey and he seems that he slipped

For me the greatest penalty taker of all time was Marco van Basten of Milan and the Netherlands. Though unfortunately for him the one most remember was also missed for his country in a Euro championship (1992 against Denmark).

he might be better, but when i say "in history", unfortunately history for me starts when i started watching soccer, in the late 90's

not a penalty kick, but this free kick against greece impressed me a lot:

[video=youtube_share;t0GESlaVNdE]http://youtu.be/t0GESlaVNdE[/video]

this was into injury time, and it allowed england to qualify to the world cup

I am about to go to bed, but I couldn't overlook this. Frederic, I could not disagree with you more on this one. If you take a look at the ratios and % of the best penalty kickers of all time, there's not even a single black player in the top 20, I don't understand how you come to this conclusion really.

http://penaltyhq.com/#
http://soccerlens.com/top-ten-free-k...ll-time/20493/

No matter how many all time great lists I find, I do not find a single black man in the top 10.

thanks for the link
apparently their website counted every penalty in the last 5 seasons
if you click on the "top players" button, you will see a list of players with 100% scored penalties
there are africans (mamadou niang, former marseille player) and tons of brazilians, some white (rogerio ceni the legend for example) and some black like hulk, and many others
there are almost no argentine on this list
there is silva, who plays in argentina, but is uruguayan (uruguayan football is heavily african-influenced, like brazil, no matter how white their team is)
then there is ortigoza who is argentine but plays for the paraguayan national team, because his father was paraguayan
but argentines are way under-represented in this list

 

[frederic38]

I am about to go to bed, but I couldn't overlook this. Frederic, I could not disagree with you more on this one. If you take a look at the ratios and % of the best penalty kickers of all time, there's not even a single black player in the top 20, I don't understand how you come to this conclusion really.

http://penaltyhq.com/#
http://soccerlens.com/top-ten-free-kick-specialists-of-all-time/20493/

No matter how many all time great lists I find, I do not find a single black man in the top 10.

i read another time the first sentence today: "as for the penalty kicks, i think that it's one of the few things in which blacks are better than whites"

this implies that the best penalty kick takers are blacks, which is not true
that's something that can happen when your english is not good enough
what i meant is that blacks have an advantage over whites (not over-thinking before a penalty kick), not that they are better


another thing: the more the penalty is important to you, the biggest are the odds that you miss it
that's why a mercenary has an advantage over a player who likes his club

 

[frederic38]

today blatter (FIFA president) said that he was thinking about an alternative to the penalty shootouts:
http://www.iol.co.za/sport/soccer/b...penalty-shootouts-1.1305294?showComments=true

this speaks volumes about chelsea's legitimity as champions league winner

 

[Europe]

today blatter (FIFA president) said that he was thinking about an alternative to the penalty shootouts:
http://www.iol.co.za/sport/soccer/b...penalty-shootouts-1.1305294?showComments=true

this speaks volumes about chelsea's legitimity as champions league winner

He said that when Italy beat France too. They are a legit winner. Bayern had their chances.

They could just go back to replays.

Or Why not have a home and home final. It's kind of silly to have the semis as home and home, but not the final.

 

[Giles Daldanus]

The final was a rather tense affair, an excellent match for the neutral…it’s almost a miracle that Chelsea won their first Champions League title (and the first one for a London-based club) in such a dramatic fashion…the headline in a Bulgarian newspaper read “The Gods must be crazy, Chelsea is the new overlord of Europe”. Drogba has now proven his worth in the “big games” and Cech was fantastic during the first 90 minutes + extra time and dispelled all doubts regarding his quality. As for his performance in the penalty shoot-out, it seems as if he had done his homework well and always went the right way (like Ricardo Pereira in 2006) despite technically saving only one penalty.
Very tough luck for Bayern, but they had plenty of chances to put the game to rest and should have been more clinical. I think that Gomez can be a very dangerous player under the right circumstances – he was on fire during the first half of the 2011/2012 season and looked like a world beater, but for some reason began to lose confidence after the winter break (after Dortmund started to increase their lead in the Bundesliga). However, it’s unfortunate that Klose was released from Bayern due to Gomez making the starting position his own (Klose is definitely not past it) and Ivica Olic and Nils Petersen see so little playing time.
Reliable penalty takers that deserve a mention are Dirk Kuyt, Ronald Koeman, Diego Forlan and Kevin Muscat. Steven Gerrard used to be in that category as well, but over the past few years he has failed to convert his penalties in high profile games (e.g. in 2006 vs. Portugal with the national team and in 2012 vs. Cardiff with Liverpool). I always thought that footballers from Northern Europe were generally the best penalty specialists.
Ashley Cole’s penalty kick was very difficult to stop; he managed to score a similar penalty against Ricardo Pereira (Euro 2004 Portugal vs. England). If I am not mistaken, Ronaldo (the Brazilian) has missed penalties only on very rare occasions.

I personally don't mind penalty shootouts, they are part of the charm of soccer and that's where unlikely heroes are made.