Just been reading up on Gareth Bale a bit. For quite a while he has been of World Class standard in elements of his game. His shooting, dribbling, running, positioning, free-kicks are all excellent, plus he can take a game by the scruff of the neck like very few others. Which leads me to the question, if you isolate every part of the game and say a player is World Class in those particular areas, surely it's possible to suggest that a player can be World Class in penalty taking..? I would have suggested that the average player, selected for England for example, wasn't World Class in their penalty taking. How about Matt Le Tissier..? was he World Class..? 47 out of 48 suggests so, but how many of the those penalties were certainties once the ball had left his boot..? If he was better than anyone else at the time then perhaps so. The thing I'm trying to persuade here is that I think Rickie Lambert is getting to be the best penalty taker out there, at present, bar none [that I know of]. His penalties are getting to be unstoppable. Go to iPlayer [you have a few more days] and watch Ben Foster dive the right way, dive before the ball has been struck, get fingertips to it, and still not be able to do anything about it because Lambert has hit the perfect penalty again. He doesn't side foot it like Matty used to, but uses his instep, and with controlled power along with precise placement. Plus, it seems that the pressure on the outcome makes no difference at all to him. He is going to score. Commentators and pundits knew that as far back as the JP Trophy Final, so this is nothing new. He's been amongst the best for years and these days I think there are few who can compare with him. I think he's World Class*. *And for the superstitious [who'll say oh no, that's done it] I had my fingers crossed all the time I typed this out.
I believe no one, in no sport was described as being "world class" before the internet become widely used.
That was an excellent penalty, maybe even unstoppable, but not all of Lambert's spot-kicks are as perfect. Most of the time a penalty doesn't need to be, of course. He's certainly one of the best around, but I'm not sure he's definitively the best. There are other very good penalty takers around such as Balotelli who is 24 for 24 in his career: http://hasbalotellimissedapenalty.com/
Not true. The first footballer who popped into my head, Pele, was considered World Class simply because it was accepted that he was the best. If you mean that the term World Class was not uttered until the Internet was invented, then you may have a point, but I'm still pretty sure that's incorrect. I think it is more a transference from other professional areas and didn't get into football until the last few decades. By the way, World Class doesn't mean best. It means to be in a top tier of skills. Which is why the names Messi, Christiano Ronaldo and Bale are often being uttered in the same sentence, these days.
"He doesn't side foot it like Matty, but uses his instep" .... which is like, the side of his foot, no?
He'll miss one eventually and I hope it doesn't dent his confidence too much, next one is going down the right though.
Even if Rickie's placement isn't perfect, he wins on power. Foster said he knew where the ball was going and Rickie said he knew that Foster knew but couldn't be bothered to put it anywhere else. Think he felt a bit invincible. Power beat Foster.
which (if laces on top of foot) is not the instep, never has been. Edited to say that my post is bolox.
What everybody else calls the instep, FLT. It's the top of the foot, looking straight down at an area about an inch before the toes, and coming halfway back to the ankle. It is neither of the sides. As DT36 suggested. it is roughly where the laces are/were, hence the phrase, putting the laces through the ball. Anyway, you can tell from his stance and finishing position how Lambert has hit the ball. please log in to view this image
If I was to bet my life on it, I would choose Rickie to take the penalty over Balotelli every day of the week. Balotelli will miss eventually. Lampard used to score all of his penalties and now look. His penalties have always been average and now keepers are aware of that. If keepers dived the right way for Balotelli's pens I reckon at least 4 for every 10 penalties he took would be saved. For Rickie, keepers dive the right way and can still not save them. I can remember only a few penalties that were "saveable". The second one at Millwall away was certainly saveable - it probably would have been saved had Taylor dived the right way. I remember a lot of his penalties that have been perfect: Birmingham at home, Villa at home, Brighton at home (the one he put in the top corner). That's what's so good about Rickie's pens. He changes where he puts them so it's difficult to know where he's going to put the next one.
You took 11 minutes to find that diagram; all you had to do was look at the corrected posts above and see that I realized I'd been a prat Ps. That was the image I found when looking to prove you wrong .... at least I came on and admitted so!
It took me 11 minutes [or whatever] to, wash my hands, go and make a cup of coffee, telephone someone to say I'll be there in an hour, sip at coffee, and then find the picture. While I was doing that, people got posting. It's not a problem mate. Shall I get a picture of Matty side footing a penalty..?
Taking penalties is about your state of mind as well I think. You've either got the composure and nerve or you haven't, no matter how well you can kick a ball, especially in a penalty shoot-out its a long walk to the penalty spot and an even longer one back if you miss!
Firstly I didn't say Balotelli was better, he was just an example of another player with a fantastic record. He might be better, I don't know, but either way I didn't say that. Secondly, "Balotelli will miss eventually" is no more certain than Lambert missing eventually, so doesn't really make your case very well. Thirdly your assertion that 4/10 would be saved if the keeper dived the right way implies that 2/10 would be saved (there being only two ways a keeper can dive, or I suppose if you count standing still as an option there are 3 "ways", which would make it 0.67/10 or one miss in 13), whereas in reality this is not the case. Balotelli's style tends to commit the keeper before the kick is taken, so he is able to roll the ball into the unguarded side of the goal. That's a legitimate technique and is clearly very effective, and even on occasions where keepers have dived the right way against him, he has still scored.
