Төвийн хамгаалагчид 11 метрийн торгуулийн цохилтыг амжилттай гүйцэтгэх чадвар сул байгаа нь энэ удаагийн ДАШТ-ий гол сэдэв болоод байна.
Энэ удаагийн тэмцээний торгуулийн цохилтуудын 18 хувийг төвийн хамгаалагчид гүйцэтгэсэн ч ердөө 45 хувь нь амжилттай болжээ. Шинжээч Гейр Жордетийн үзэж буйгаар, хамгаалагчдын цохилт хийх ур чадвар довтлогчид болон хагас хамгаалагчдаас доогуур байдаг нь үүнд нөлөөлдөг аж. Дасгалжуулагчид тэднийг сэтгэл зүйн хувьд тэсвэртэй гэж үзэн сонгодог ч, талбайн тоглолтын туршлага нь торгуулийн цохилтын дарамттай нөхцөлд бүрэн хөрвөдөггүй байна.
Швейцар болон Колумбын тоглолтын үеэр Давинсон Санчес, Мануэль Аканьи нар цохилтоо алдсан бол Германы Жонатан Тахын алдаа багийнх нь тэмцээнээс хасагдах шалтгаан болсон юм. Тах өөрийгөө хариуцлага хүлээх ёстой байсан гэж тайлбарласан ч, Оливер Кан шигшээ багийн тоглогчид сайн дураараа биш, харин хариуцлагатай мөчид бөмбөгийг өөрсдөө шаардах ёстой байсныг шүүмжилжээ.
Австралийн хувьд Гарри Соуттар, Лукас Херрингтон нар цохилтоо алдсан нь Египетийн эсрэг тоглолтод хохиролтой туссан. Хэдийгээр дасгалжуулагч Тони Попович залуу тоглогчдоо өмгөөлсөн ч, статистик мэдээлэл нь шөвгийн наймд шалгарсан багуудыг торгуулийн цохилтод төвийн хамгаалагчдаа бага ашиглахыг зөвлөж байна.
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When identifying players best suited to taking a penalty, you would probably think of ability, technique and ball striking as key physical attributes.
That would also probably lead you to select strikers, forwards, wingers, attacking midfielders and central midfielders first and foremost.
Why, then, during a World Cup getting a reputation for bad penalty taking, have 18 per cent of all penalties been taken by centre-backs?
More than half of those have been missed, with missed being the operative word. Five big centre-backs — Davinson Sanchez (Colombia), Manuel Akanji (Switzerland), Harry Souttar, Lucas Herrington (both Australia) and Jonathan Tah (Germany) — have stepped up and smashed their penalties either against the crossbar or over it.
Centre-backs have scored with just 45 per cent of their penalties at this World Cup. Compare that to other positions and they don’t fare well:
Defenders don’t have to be bad at penalties. Far from it: Dutch defender Ronald Koeman was one of the most prolific penalty-takers of all time, scoring more than 100 during his career.
Harry Maguire’s monster penalty in the Euro 2020 final for England against Italy was crunched into the top corner in the kind of utterly uncompromising fashion you would expect from someone whose dressing room nickname is ‘Slabhead’.
David Luiz’s penalty for Chelsea against Bayern Munich in the 2012 Champions League final was equally as unyielding: a fast, long run-up, then full pelt into the top corner.
However, in this particular World Cup, powerful penalties from centre-backs have mostly gone wrong — and this is not a new trend.
“Overall, in major tournament penalty shootouts, defenders (central defenders and full backs) constitute about 30 per cent of the players featured in a shootout, and they score about six per cent fewer goals than midfielders and forwards,” says Geir Jordet, The Athletic’s penalty expert for the World Cup.
“Defenders still score less than players in other positions and coaches need to strongly consider whether defenders are the right players to pick in shoot-outs. I suspect they score less because their goal scoring skill levels are inferior to those of their teammates.
“And I suspect that coaches still put them into shoot-outs because they think that defenders are more confident and/or resilient than others, but they fail to consider that confidence is quite task-specific.
“So you may appear very confident, resilient and robust when you solve tasks you know well (e.g. playing out from the back, dueling etc), but this might appear very different on other tasks (e.g. penalty taking in a shootout).”
During Switzerland’s last-16 shoot-out victory over Colombia in Vancouver, two of the first six penalties were blazed off target by centre-backs, with Sanchez smashing his against the crossbar, before Akanji smashed his against a fan sat in Row Z (probably).
Jonathan Tah skied over the bar for Germany against Paraguay (Megan Briggs/Getty Images)
But the most notorious example of a defender missing a penalty so far was Germany’s Jonathan Tah. He looked pretty confident with his fast run-up, but got his placement all wrong, lashing it high and wide. It was a decisive moment, with Paraguay winning the shoot-out with their next penalty and dumping Germany out of the competition at the last-32 stage, with head coach Julian Nagelsmann leaving his post soon after.
“To be honest, I felt good,” Tah told reporters. “I wasn’t particularly nervous, even though I had actually expected to be, but I didn’t strike the ball well.
“I’d try it again next time. I think it’s important to take responsibility in difficult moments. That’s something I had consciously set out to do for this tournament: to take responsibility — and that’s why I did it in that moment.”
Tah had never taken a penalty before in his career. While stepping up took nerve and bottle, the fact that Joshua Kimmich was shown apparently asking for volunteers before the shoot-out did not go down well with some German fans or media.
Oliver Kahn, the former Germany goalkeeper, said: “For me, that was the most revealing moment of this elimination. A top team does not look for volunteers at that moment. They have players who demand the ball.”
The winning Paraguayan penalty was actually scored by a centre-back, Jose Canale. He was one of three centre-backs to take a spot kick for Paraguay in the shoot-out, with Gustavo Gomez also scoring.
However, 34-year-old centre-back Fabian Balbuena, brought on specifically to take a penalty in the 122nd minute when he replaced full-back Junior Alonso, saw his penalty saved by Manuel Neuer. Fortunately for him and Paraguay, it wasn’t costly.
Australia picked two centre-backs for their last-32 shoot-out against Egypt and on this occasion it did cost them. Souttar fired over and then 18-year-old Lucas Herrington struck his side-footed shot against the top of the crossbar.
Lucas Herrington hits the bar with his penalty against Egypt (Molly Darlington/Getty Images)
The fact Herrington took a penalty instead of far more experienced teammates was criticised afterwards, prompting a prickly response from manager Tony Popovic.
“I think it’s always easy to do that in hindsight,” Popovic said in his post-match press conference. “I’m sure you’d be saying something else if the young kid scored. You’d probably be sitting there saying how wonderful it is that an 18-year-old took a penalty and scored.”
Herrington himself admitted that people might be wondering why he stepped up, but more for his age than his position on the field.
“The coaching side of the team had my back – they believed in me,” he told reporters after the game. “I made my penalties during the week. We practiced it. I was confident, so it was just… I knew where I wanted to put it. I did my routine and, unfortunately, it didn’t go my way.”
It should also be noted that another centre-back, Hossam Abdelmaguid, scored the winning penalty for Egypt after Herrington’s miss.
Of course, anyone can miss a penalty regardless of where they play. There is a bloke called Lionel Messi who can do things with his left boot that defy logic and physics, but even he’s not great from 12 yards.
Even so, as the last eight prepare to assemble for the possibility of World Cup quarter-final shoot-outs, the data suggests they should steer clear of centre-backs.
