Mocking the goalkeeper with the spoon. Here is who invented it

What does a goalkeeper hate most? Taking a penalty kick. Because it is difficult to parry. And who invented the penalty kick? A goalkeeper. It seems a paradox but it is so. Football began to be played in England around 1860 and, for the first thirty years, the penalty did not exist. A foul, even committed in the area, is sanctioned with a normal punishment. But there are attackers who come in avalanche on goalkeepers and defenders just as rude and violent. After all, the barrier was placed (at 9 meters) on the goal line and it was difficult to score. Then, in 1981, the turning point. A defender stops the ball with his hand an inch from the goal. Free kick, barrier on the line and the goalkeeper who rejects. For this reason, from the following year, it was decided to change. William McCrum, Milford Everton goalkeeper, has raised the alarm. The leaders of football meet and it is decided: the “maximum punishment” will be to put a player in front of the goalkeeper (while all the others are placed behind him) with the ball 12 yards (11 meters) from the goal.

Since then, all over the world, tens of thousands of penalty kicks have been taken and on how to kick it, at what speed, on where to direct the ball, etc .. physicists, mathematicians, even economists have expressed themselves. But, to keep your feet on the ground, is there ever someone who has always scored penalties? And is there a goalkeeper who has always blocked them?

Great penalty taker was Marco Van Basten (56 goals out of 59 penalties), another was Michel Platini (49 goals out of 53 shots). And Ronaldo (the Phenomenon)? Only 58 goals out of 63 penalties (with the percentage dropping to 92%). Who came very close to perfection was Matt Le Tissier, historic Southampton player who scored 47 penalties out of 48 shot (98% percentage).

But be careful: it is not Totti who invented the “spoon”. The first to throw it was Antonin Panenka, midfielder of Czechoslovakia in the final of the 1976 European Championships against West Germany. Game times end at 2-2. The first three penalties on each side are all scored. It’s up to the German Hoeness who shoots over the crossbar. So, for Czechoslovakia Panenka goes from the spot. He is a 28 year old hotel expert who plays in Bohemians Prague. He has always taken penalties like this: soft and central, with dead leaves, but the very strong German goalkeeper, Sepp Maier, did not know it (then there was no possibility to see the foreign championships on TV). Maier dives to one side and the ball slowly enters the center of the goal. Czechoslovakia wins its only European. “If I was wrong – he says – they would send me to work in the factory for 30 years in a row”. It went well for him, but he took a big risk. –