Lauren Hynde
Hitched
- Joined
- Apr 11, 2002
- Posts
- 21,061
This is [part of] an article I read today in a magazine and that I wanted to share with you all (especially the English, Swedes and Dutch).
I translated it in a haste; forgive any language faults.
The Formula of the Penalty
Please don't tell me that Helder Postiga's penalty against England was a moment of class. That's not how to score a penalty on the day you play the fate of a country. His father had told him: "If you go to penalties, don't fool around." Postiga fooled around. In fact, he even failed the shot. He wanted it high and failed it. A slow high ball, yes, it will go in almost every time, when well executed, given enough time for the keeper to fall. If it's low, there's a 50% chance of missing. Postiga's penalty was, in fact, a juvenile irresponsibility. Deco's fascinated congratulation was a juvenile irresponsibility. The thought of Postiga being the only absolutely calm person in the Stadium da Luz was an irresponsibility-period. The comparisons with the penalties scored by Djalminha or Panenka, well... – the English journalists also compared Rooney with Pelé (and then with Ronaldo, when they were met with that try-to-grow-some-sense look), and we all saw how that ended.
I love penalties. Some of my finest football memories are of penalties: Ivkovic betting twice with Maradona, the best footballer I ever saw – and winning both times; Roberto Baggio, the artist, killing with a shot over the bar the best World Cup Italy had had since 1982; [...] Those are priceless memories. Epic. Perfect.
I always wish a knock-out match to go to penalties. Be it a Euro 2004 game, a Champions League final, or a married men vs. singles played at José Albino's tentadero in a bullfighting day in Terra Chã. The "golden goal" was an idiotic invention – an anthem to cold deception, an assault against apotheosis – and the "silver goal" was just an attempt to come clean. The reason why we should be happy with the latest changes to the Portuguese Cup's regulations is that: no more second match in case of a draw in the final and, therefore, the increased probability of a penalty shoot-out. It's 15 magical minutes. The players hugging in the big circle, the medical staff worried with the stretching and relaxation exercises, the managers with little papers in their hands, "stilled hearts" on the stands, as it's said on some chronicles I know – magical, all of it.
I do hope there's a penalty shoot-out tomorrow evening. Because that's what penalties are for: to be taken, to become goals. I always thought stupid to call them an injustice. A player doesn't score a penalty – he gets rid of it. Many will prefer to lose the match without missing their penalty over going through to the next round missing it. A penalty is an almost-goal, really – a compensation for the theft of a certain goal, if it happens during normal play; a eulogy for perfection, if it happens during a shoot-out. It isn't scoring it that makes a difference – it's to miss it. Yes, that's what penalties are: a eulogy for perfection. It's the reduction of the margin for error to the minimum, the entire game on the wire, no safety net, no backup cable. It's like writing on the computer, with all of Word's tools at your service: it raises the quality bar, pushes you to the limit.
I apologise if this text doesn't have "basculation", "lozenge vertex" or "transitional velocity" – all of what makes José Mourinho's comments true lessons in football. I know little of played football. But I do know penalties. I was "the fat kid", and as the fat goalkeeper, all I had left was to specialise in penalties. And I do know that a well taken penalty is indefensible. Every time. Told me so Dionísio, my youth coach: "You can specialise all you want, for every ten penalties I'll always score nine."
[...]
It would be Dionísio to teach me, years later, the formula of the penalty. The formula of the penalty is an equation of three variables. For us, the ones who know nothing of math, simply an addition. I'll enounce: strength + aim + dissimulation = goal. That is to say: a penalty that is taken with strength, is well aimed, and fools the keeper, is a goal, every time. OK, it's a simple idea. But it has intermediate considerations – mathematicians would call them "decompositions". A penalty that is strong and well aimed, rarely needs dissimulation. Dissimulate and strong can make do, in principle, without great care in aim. Well aimed and dissimulate and it will survive without strength. That is to say, two factors suffice. It's science at the service of art – yes, the penalty is the lowest common product of art and science.
As for Postiga's penalty, it had dissimulation and nothing else. And the only thing that saved him was the fourth factor, the one that doesn't take place in the equation – the only thing that, in truth, will always make art overshadow science. Yes, luck.
I do hope there's a penalty shoot-out tomorrow evening.
I translated it in a haste; forgive any language faults.
The Formula of the Penalty
Please don't tell me that Helder Postiga's penalty against England was a moment of class. That's not how to score a penalty on the day you play the fate of a country. His father had told him: "If you go to penalties, don't fool around." Postiga fooled around. In fact, he even failed the shot. He wanted it high and failed it. A slow high ball, yes, it will go in almost every time, when well executed, given enough time for the keeper to fall. If it's low, there's a 50% chance of missing. Postiga's penalty was, in fact, a juvenile irresponsibility. Deco's fascinated congratulation was a juvenile irresponsibility. The thought of Postiga being the only absolutely calm person in the Stadium da Luz was an irresponsibility-period. The comparisons with the penalties scored by Djalminha or Panenka, well... – the English journalists also compared Rooney with Pelé (and then with Ronaldo, when they were met with that try-to-grow-some-sense look), and we all saw how that ended.
I love penalties. Some of my finest football memories are of penalties: Ivkovic betting twice with Maradona, the best footballer I ever saw – and winning both times; Roberto Baggio, the artist, killing with a shot over the bar the best World Cup Italy had had since 1982; [...] Those are priceless memories. Epic. Perfect.
I always wish a knock-out match to go to penalties. Be it a Euro 2004 game, a Champions League final, or a married men vs. singles played at José Albino's tentadero in a bullfighting day in Terra Chã. The "golden goal" was an idiotic invention – an anthem to cold deception, an assault against apotheosis – and the "silver goal" was just an attempt to come clean. The reason why we should be happy with the latest changes to the Portuguese Cup's regulations is that: no more second match in case of a draw in the final and, therefore, the increased probability of a penalty shoot-out. It's 15 magical minutes. The players hugging in the big circle, the medical staff worried with the stretching and relaxation exercises, the managers with little papers in their hands, "stilled hearts" on the stands, as it's said on some chronicles I know – magical, all of it.
I do hope there's a penalty shoot-out tomorrow evening. Because that's what penalties are for: to be taken, to become goals. I always thought stupid to call them an injustice. A player doesn't score a penalty – he gets rid of it. Many will prefer to lose the match without missing their penalty over going through to the next round missing it. A penalty is an almost-goal, really – a compensation for the theft of a certain goal, if it happens during normal play; a eulogy for perfection, if it happens during a shoot-out. It isn't scoring it that makes a difference – it's to miss it. Yes, that's what penalties are: a eulogy for perfection. It's the reduction of the margin for error to the minimum, the entire game on the wire, no safety net, no backup cable. It's like writing on the computer, with all of Word's tools at your service: it raises the quality bar, pushes you to the limit.
I apologise if this text doesn't have "basculation", "lozenge vertex" or "transitional velocity" – all of what makes José Mourinho's comments true lessons in football. I know little of played football. But I do know penalties. I was "the fat kid", and as the fat goalkeeper, all I had left was to specialise in penalties. And I do know that a well taken penalty is indefensible. Every time. Told me so Dionísio, my youth coach: "You can specialise all you want, for every ten penalties I'll always score nine."
[...]
It would be Dionísio to teach me, years later, the formula of the penalty. The formula of the penalty is an equation of three variables. For us, the ones who know nothing of math, simply an addition. I'll enounce: strength + aim + dissimulation = goal. That is to say: a penalty that is taken with strength, is well aimed, and fools the keeper, is a goal, every time. OK, it's a simple idea. But it has intermediate considerations – mathematicians would call them "decompositions". A penalty that is strong and well aimed, rarely needs dissimulation. Dissimulate and strong can make do, in principle, without great care in aim. Well aimed and dissimulate and it will survive without strength. That is to say, two factors suffice. It's science at the service of art – yes, the penalty is the lowest common product of art and science.
As for Postiga's penalty, it had dissimulation and nothing else. And the only thing that saved him was the fourth factor, the one that doesn't take place in the equation – the only thing that, in truth, will always make art overshadow science. Yes, luck.
I do hope there's a penalty shoot-out tomorrow evening.
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I don't like it. Bavarian food should not be mistaken for general german food. Bratwurst is pretty good and popular but Currywurst - Pommes is far better 
