and you think Messi, a guy that has basically gotten every accolade a player can get (at a club level at least) and is beloved by his fan base, is pissing his pants taking a penalty in Camp Nou against Levante up 4-0? He couldn't give less of a ****.

Here's another question for you: the vast majority of players doesn't even attempt to hit an unsavable penalty, why do you think that is? Their coaches are advising them not to practice them because they know they can't hit them in matches?

If we are looking at stats.

84.43% of PKs have been converted over the lifetime of the EPL.

3.83% missed.
11.75% saved.

Do you have any meaningful data on his conversion rate in those situations. It should be close to 100%, so I dont even know why you are referencing it.

quick googling: "Looking at their whole careers, it is still tough to separate them. Messi, Suarez and Neymar have very similar rates of success, with Messi boasting a 78% success rate, while Suarez and Neymar have both scored 77% of their career spot kicks."

so, in your opinion Messi, Neymar and Suarez, 3 of the best footballers this world has ever seen, are missing all their penalties in high pressure situations (you just said when there's no pressure Messi hits close to 100% of them), that's a ****load of high pressure situations, it seems to me Barça must be winning all their games 1-0.

About 4% missed is surprisingly low imo. Maybe because the ones hitting the moon are so much fun, or/and the slips.

you're way underestimating the amount of time "low and hard" gets saved if a decent goalkeeper guesses right

4m21s here:


or 24s here:


top corner is really the only place the goalkeeper never gets close to if you do it right.

I would have assumed Messi scored more than the average conversion rate in the EPL of 84% when in a total non pressure situation.

If you think Messi can only convert 77% of PKs in non pressure situation we should just stop talking as you are on planet totally crazy and obviously wasting time here.

As I said I am willing to debate where the bricks go, that is the actual debate.

Even if we say top corner only (I would not) then I would still estimate a 90+% conversion rate under no pressure.

Messi, as any human being, likely misses more in pressure situations, but the vast majority of those were not taken under those circumstances, he's played for Barça his whole life. I'm fairly sure Messi has run bad on penalties throughout his career to have those numbers, but the the simple fact that he can run that bad should be enough to make you realize that he's not even close to the numbers you're throwing out.

Again, very few players even attempt to hit unsavable penalties, if that doesn't tell you what professional football players think about the margin of error on those shots (under any type of pressure) then you're just arguing for the sake of arguing.

Even if we assume (incorrectly imo) that only shots into the top corner are unsavable, then they are fairly common in PK shoot outs.

But yes due to pressure when taking PKs in shoot outs you can dial down the difficulty of the PK you are taking and still be fairly confident of scoring so its obviously optimum to do that.

I mean the whole crux of my argument is that pressure impacts PKs, which obviously increases margin of error, so I am not sure where you think you are going with this one.

Let me remind you what your initial argument was, it wasn't "players should be hitting pk's around 90% of the time", it was: hitting unsavable penalties is extremely easy, any center back can do it.

daca just posted two videos of pk shootouts, only one of those shots fits that criteria: Robben's. I'll grant you those were high pressure situations and players are not gonna risk taking a high shot there almost never, but that's exactly the point, those are risky shots and not at all the easy "any cb with basic technique can take them" shots you claim they are.

u guys coming at this bollocks from the wrong angle

if you paid attention to this final you would've noticed that the pressure has an even greater impact on the goalkeeper. in fact oblak was so terrified he was unable to move from his starting position

90% is surely too high here. I think an elite pro could get the accuracy but not without giving up a lot of the power in the shot.

Not everyone can be Christian Eriksen.

I doubt anyone is going to click those

If you turn up before live games you'll see a bunch of high level players missing the target playing one on one with the keeper - why? Either 1) Because, I assume, they're going for accuracy (ie corner of the goal) so while no defenders in their way and just a lolkeeper they miss the target more than you would think or it's saved.
Or it's 2) they can't be bothered because it's a warm up and are messing around.
Either way, supposedly easy shots are not making the target with no pressure on them so maybe getting a penalty right is not easy - even if we know put it into the side netting and even De Gea hasn't got quick enough reflexes / stretch to stop it. My issue is that it's not easy to stick in the side netting.

Great guy Ronaldo. He also donated his 600k bonus for winning the CL, others were probably busy with TAX FRAUD.

still waking up everyday with a smile on my face

'cause Real won on PKs?
and don't you live in Hungaria or some ****?
#sicklyfe

Because Atletico blew it again. Like Chuck Wepner against Ali. They had a chance and wound KOd.

In the name of Modric, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.