When Man Utd played Villarreal in the Europa league final, the penalties from both sides were largely class, but the Spanish side were even better. Top bins penalty after top bin penalty.
There’s been a few shoot outs over this tournament, and ours were the worst of the lot in terms of technique and result. Southgate brings on two players who haven’t kicked the ball, so not even a warm up whilst Saka is a bag of nerves which is completely understandable.
I’ve no doubt players put their hands up to take one in training, and equally we practice them. But are we dedicating 10 minutes at the end of training for it, rather than say a proper session where we watch videos of the opposition penalty takers, we analyse where Donnaruma has more success going to, and also the techniques to taking a penalty.
Apparently there is a book on taking the perfect penalty, and you never for example, start running on the whistle (as Mbappe did) for more chance of success.
I watch some sides and either through technique, training and a bit of luck, they give themselves a huge advantage. It’s much more than flip of a coin, as someone said in this thread a few days ago, you create your own luck. A top golfer would get more holes in one on a par 3 than your or I because they are more likely to land the ball on the green near the pin each time.