ReSpawn wrote:

4 - 2 through penalties

g0ggy wrote:

Odd,the first hour it was 0 - 0 so I thought that it would be like 2 - 1 or even 2 - 0 by the end.Oh and thanks @googy

I have no idea why Ronaldo didn't take one of the penalties. How can you not let the one of the top 2 players in the world not take one? I know most teams don't count on missing 2 of the first 4 and not even be in the position to take a 5th, but you just can't not let Ronaldo take one. Put Nani last. He's solid enough to anchor your shooters.

Also, I think the announcers made way too big of a deal about the Bruno Alves one. Yeah, he got called back and had to wait a little longer. But you're not thinking about that when you're up there. You're just focusing on absolutely drilling it when you take, not on the actual order you go in. I just hate it when they harp on stuff like that.

bburg83O wrote:

I actually tweeted Welsh after the match asking why Ronaldo didn't take one.

his response was "His ego,wanted the winning kick" (Paraphrasing as I'm not staring at twitter right now)

But from the looks of it there is no "set" lineup of shooters. Like the NHL where you present a lineup ahead of time and those first 5 shoot in the order presented then afterwards it's coaches choice.

It looked as if Portugal actually switched players on the 2nd to last shot.(not positive)

Just seems Odd he wouldn't want to make it sure bet that they were tied at least.

Where's Kid at? Maybe he can shed some light on the issue.

Otter wrote:

Probably not. He literally said this after I used the term "soccer" in a post:



How ignorant can you be?

On the PK's though, I'm not sure if it's a set order or not. We saw the little switch by Nani and Bruno Alves, but maybe Alves just went up too early. In all the games I ever played, the 5 were always set aside, but I'm not sure if that means changes couldn't have been made.

bburg83O wrote:

True about kid,he is very defensive if you use the term "soccer"
--------------

Anywho,Yeah I'm not entirely sure about the set shooting order. I want to assume that there is a set order as your "he may have went up early" seems logical. But even the announcers (which you can judge them as you may) seemed surprised

The order is indeed set by the coach before the penalties start. They huddle and he thens decides who takes them. Most of the time it's entirely the coaches decision although if a player isn't confident or if another is very confident, he might makes changes/exceptions to his predetermined order.

Take into account that substitutions normally mess up the list of players that would take them, which is why the coaches tend to make the list after the second half of overtime, not before the game.

In today's scenario the coach probably had nothing to do with the switch up between Alves/Nani. It was probably either because Alves accidentally skipped Nani or because Nani decided he wanted to take that particular penalty and Alves let him.

Cristiano should have probably shot before, but I suppose as Welsh said via twitter, he simply wanted to shoot the last one and get the win. Most teams don't take into account missing two penalties when making the list.

So in the other words there is a "list" but it's very possible to be changed mid PK's?

in the NHL once the lineup is set those 5 guys have to go in the order that was presented to the officials (or at least I assume it is presented to the officials) I've never seen a change occur mid Penalty shots.

but thank you for the input Panda +k

Ronaldo had past issues taking the 1st penalties in recent years. just recently in the champions league ronaldos penalty got saved when he stepped up 1st..portugal probably wanted someone without a lot of pressure on them to take the penalty first to give portugal some confidence. their whole plan probably backfired when mountinho missed so yeah..would of been a waste having ronaldo take the 2nd,3rd, or 4th penalties.

you're retarded if you think he wanted to shoot the last one so he could get the glory. he does everything in his power to help his team win and is actually a very humble guy.

“We had this plan. If it would have been 4-4 and Cristiano would have taken the last penalty, we would be talking in a different way.”
— Paulo Bento

Kid Dynamite wrote:

I'm not buying this. What coach honestly expects it to be 4-4? They know as well as anyone that somebody is going to crack under pressure or a keeper is going to make a huge save. If that's what he was counting on, that's really poor thinking. Send him up 3rd or 4th. The pressure's off after a few guys have already gone. He can just step up and do what he knows he needs to do.

bburg83O wrote:
Well it's not that bad an idea, in theory. It's slightly risky and looks stupid right now, but a lot of teams have their captains or big name players take the final penalties in the shootout. The 5th penalty for the second team is the one with the most pressure, so why not give it to your best player, the captain? Like I said, it looks stupid now, but hindsight is a wonderful thing. And I have no doubt that the Ronaldo wanted the glory, but he also wanted that responsibility too.

Also, why Spain don't play with a proper striker was shown last night. Spain want to control the game and that's why they play an extra midfielder, who can drop back and is comfortable on the ball. Negredo in the first half couldn't do this (no idea why he was chosen before Llorente mind), and when he was taken off Spain were a lot more comfortable.

Spain make history if they win Sunday's final. I don't mind who they play; I love Italy but Germany against Spain is probably the final everyone wanted before the tournament.

welshboymick wrote:

I understand that, but I still don't think you count on a shootout that's tied going into the last shot. To me, that's too big of a risk to take. To save the 2nd best player in the world for a PK that may never happen is silly, in my opinion. Just look at what Spain did. Fabregas isn't their best player. If their best player was going to step up and take the final penalty, it would probably be Xavi or Iniesta (not that the other Spanish player aren't really good as well). But Fabregas is more than capable of taking the last penalty, as he's shown twice now. To me, finding someone who won't crack under the pressure is more important than making it your best player. I feel like Nani or Pepe would have been better choices for that last penalty.

Really the whole argument is quite silly, though. The expectation is that you can drill a penalty if you are a professional player. So in the end, it's not like Ronaldo is going to take a significantly better penalty than anyone else. They are all going to be equally difficult for the keeper for the most part. I guess it's kind of a media ploy to make a big deal out of Ronaldo not taking a kick.

bburg83O wrote:

Actually to add to Kid's point by using the NHL as an example(As it's the only other "major" sport that has Penalty Shots) Most big time scorers/skill players rarely take the first/second shot. Some just aren't comfortable doing it,or have bad success going first (Not that ronaldo has bad success) But leaving them for a the later "rounds" gives you a more likely chance to put the game winner in,or get the tying goal.

You can't truly account for it being dead even going into the 5th shot. The goalie for all we know could very well stop 1-2 of the first few shots while the other team puts in it's first 2 meaning your keeper has to stop everything and your team put every ball in.

The variables are no where near expectable. Like Welsh said,in hind sight it looks bad now, but assuming that your players would score isn't really a bad thing. It takes a hell of a lot for a keeper to make that split second decision and save the shot.

bburg83O wrote:
This is definitely true, something that I was perhaps a little bit guilty of. He hasn't a great record in penalty shootouts recently apparently, so perhaps he didn't want to take one. We don't know.

@Otter, it's happened once in rugby a few years ago, in the Heineken Cup semi-final, which is a European Club competition. Cardiff and Leicester drew after full time, Cardiff scoring two amazing tries in the last 5 minutes. It then goes to tries scored, which both teams had two of. Then it went to extra time and golden point, but no one scored. In the end it went to penalty kicks from the 22. Bare in mind that the only player in a rugby team who would practise these are the designated kickers, it was going to be a lottery who would win. In football and NHL, every player needs to know how to hit a ball or puck; in rugby, only a few ever practice kicking. So in that situation, the better players you want to be taking the final kick, as they're more practiced and can deal with the pressure more. In football, you can still make a case for it, but less so.

If anyone wants to watch the shootout:

It was heartbreaking.

welshboymick wrote:

This isn't completely right. I mean, if we take into account the last month or two, then yes. But until he missed one in the last few games of the league and then the Champions League one, he had scored like 23 or 29 or 20 something penalties in a row with Real Madrid in League without missing any.

He's an experienced penalty shooter, but he's had bad luck VERY recently.

ImpetuousPanda wrote:
He missed one in the CL final for Man U in 2008 too. It's just a little interesting sidenote, that perhaps he wasn't entirely confident with taking one. He didn't have a great game either.

Copy paste off a different website: "While he is theoretically Portugal's best penalty taker (he bagged a whopping 14 for Real Madrid last season, and of course scored in both of Portugal's shoot-out wins over England), we should probably recall that he missed one for Manchester United in the 2008 Champions League final, one against Barcelona earlier in that competition and one for Real Madrid in this season's semi-final."

Also, to go back to the video I posted on rugby, the commentators even have a go at the Leicester team for holding back one of their better kickers 'til near the end, when the pressure was on. Of course the good kicker nailed his pressure kick.

super mario!!!!
hes now joint top goal scorer

#prayforzegermans

if ronaldo was the 3rd or 4th kicker and made it. then bruno alves would of been the 5th and then he would of had more pressure on him and then would of rocketed it over the crossbar most likely. ronaldo was planning on taking the full responsibility if his team lost, because of his missed penalty.

now shut up about it. he didn't know his team would miss 2 penaltys..

Actually gotch to watch today. Germany 0 - 2 Italy
What a shame I thought that Germany would win.
30 minutes left I dont think Germany will be able to pull it off.

funny how both italy and spain struggled with croatia and now they will go to the finals
well atleast we can say we either tied with the champs or went head to head with former and current champs

Italy 2 - 1 Germany
I dont know what to say about this.

zeus wrote:croatia is a beastly team ranked 8th in the world. italy is ranked 12th so yeah..

i can see spain and italy going into a penalty shootout tbh..they both really good defense.

I'm surprised Germany lost.....now the two teams i was cheering on have failed.....shit.

... Well Italy was clearly the better team.

I hope Spain can win now. Germany just needs to destroy Portugal again ... to become third ... again. *sigh*