Tangotiger Blog

Someone on Twitter posted this great data:

https://www.bsports.com/statsinsights/football/goalkeeper-penalty-statistics

Here are the number of standard deviations from the mean:

2.29 Tim Howard
2.12 Roman Weidenfeller
1.46 Julio Cesar
1.44 Manuel Neuer
1.14 Nick Rimando
0.85 Michel Vorm
0.72 Vincent Enyeama
0.52 Guillermo Ochoa
0.52 Diego Benaglio
0.20 Keylor Navas
0.18 David Ospina
(0.06) Sergio Romero
(0.06) Thibaut Courtois
(0.43) Simon Mignolet
(0.43) Claudio Bravo
(0.53) Brad Guzan
(0.63) Mickaël Landreau
(0.72) Mariano Andujar
(0.80) Orestis Karnezis
(0.89) Tim Krul
(1.04) Hugo Lloris
(1.13) Faryd Mondragón
(1.53) Ron-Robert Zieler
(1.53) Fernando Muslera
(1.54) Stéphane Ruffier

The SD is 1.09 and average number of opps is 14.  Skill exists, but not obvious with only 14 attempts.

Would like to see height and wingspan for all goalies.

Some different data from @WhoScored: Tim Krul saved just 2 of the 20 penalties he faced in the Premier League in the last 5 seasons.

And this isn’t quite data so hopefully I’m not banned, but “We had discussed it with Tim. He knew about their penalties because he needed to be prepared. It worked out. If it hadn’t, it would have been my mistake.” Knowing shooters’ tendencies probably more than makes up any skill difference.

Talked to a Turkish friend today who says in 22 years of soccer, it’s the first time he’s ever seen that.

Still looking for good soccer analytics blogs.

@James (#2): Shouldn’t the starting keeper ALSO have known the shooters’ tendencies?  The Netherlands’ last game vs. Mexico was decided by a penalty kick.

Good luck finding “evidence” data on this.  This is where baseball analysts would say to go with the scouting.  Which is what the coaches are doing.  They are going with the eye test of who is better at stopping penalty kicks.  And in soccer they don’t have goalies, they have goalkeepers.

Some has said this was a novel trick. Well, I remember in 1991 Gold cup final, Honduras vs USA, Flavio Ortega substituted goalkeepers on minute 119, obviously just for penalty kicks. Wilmer Cruz entered for Belarmino Rivera. It did not work, but still it is clearly a precedent. Someone mentioned Asian championship in 1996 too.

One of the commentators on the program I watched mentioned that the goalie who exited was 0-for-16 in his professional career.
Whatever skill exists among the goalies, greater skill (and range) exists among the shooters. There is one guy in England (I think) who has scored 35 or so penalties without a miss. There are others with 20-30 penalties scored and rate in 90s. And there are players who score 60-70% of their penalties (among those who take penalties regularly or semi-regularly for their team). Considering number of penalties faced, distribution of shooters can skew goalie’s numbers a lot.
Some leagues in late eighties tried penalty shots to solve draws (I know of Yugoslavia in Europe, there were some countries in South America). That is, I believe, the origin of 3-1-0 point system: from old 2W-1D-0L it went to 3W-2penW-1penL-0L, and later was widely accepted 3-1-0 without penalties. If someone can get data from those leagues, some goalies faced 40-50 penalties per season.

I’m perfectly fine with scouting and eye tests for goalies and shooters.  It all still has to be quantified, just like everything else.  In the end, you need to make a decision as to what is better, and you do so by quantifying all the various qualifications, however imprecise it all is.

One other thing to consider is that penalty shoot-outs are different from penalty kicks taken during the course of a game. Slightly different rules regarding the kick (no rebounds, for example). Obviously, penalty kicks in game are a close approximation and are useful - particularly since penalty shoot-outs are a pretty rare occurrence.

But penalty kicks in game are ordinarily taken only by the best penalty kicker on the team (most notable exception to this is when a player is on two goals; often he’ll take the kick for best chance at completing hat-trick). And players who are excellent from the spot really should fail to convert only on rare occasions. A reasonably well-placed kick is essentially unsaveable even if the goalkeeper knows exactly where the kick will be.

It’s rare for any team, even national teams, to have five excellent penalty kick takers. So data from in-game penalty kicks probably understates a goalie’s ability/skill in a shoot-out. Excellent penalty kick takers will almost always beat even the best goalies against PKs in the world. When they start facing lesser players, skill/ability (like wingspan or jumping ability) is more likely to play a role against them because those guys are more likely to kick saveable penalties.

Well, Holland reached another penalty shoot-out, did not switch the goalkeeper and lost. I guess this doesn’t prove or disprove anything from a statistical point of view but in my scouting, Cillessen did not look as good as Krul in the previous round. I think Krul was in the right corner for each of the penalties he faced.

BTW, I imagine the decision to switch in Krul for the penalty kicks vs. Costa Rica may have been based on how the keepers looked in practise.

I believe Netherlands was out of subs and could not replace their goalkeeper.  Feel free to correct me if that is not an accurate statement.

#10 is correct.

I saw a statement by Dutch coach van der Gaal on Yahoo. Basically, he ran out of substitutes as he felt compelled to make the three earlier changes.
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/why-dutch-coach-abandoned-winning-goalkeeper-strategy-in-world-cup-semifinal-loss-034025306.html

You don’t “run out” of subs.  You plan those subs.  He thought it was better to make a third player sub than to potentially sub the goalie.  That’s the point here, the tradeoff.  And it sure seems that the gain you get in a goalie tradeoff is so small that you almost always prefer the third sub be a player and not a goalie.

You might plan subs, but the realities of the game that actually happens can change those plans. A lot of coaches will save a sub until late in case of injury/cramping - you could end up down a man if you don’t save a sub. Save it long enough, and the goalie switch makes sense - why bother subbing a player with 5 minutes or less remaining if they don’t need to, if you can gain a possible advantage in a penalty shootout?