A truly terrible penalty (Video)
I believe it was the last season at Highbury when Robert Pires and Thierry Henry infamously cocked up a penalty routine.
Arsenal were playing Manchester City and Pires stepped up to take the spot kick. Everything seemed normal as Pires gathered momentum with his run up, ready to dispatch the penalty but….wait a minute, what is he doing? Pires stopped at the crucial moment and was dispossessed. What a shambles!
Believe it or not, Pires was trying to play the ball to Henry in an attempt to replicate Johan Cruyff’s trick penalty in which the taker passes it to a team-mate for what should be, in theory, a very straightforward goal. It requires trickery and deception of the highest order, which Cruyff utilised perfectly in his version and Pires not so well in his.
Thankfully for Pires and Henry, Arsenal still won the game despite their gigantic cock up and, when asked about it after the game, Henry couldn’t stop himself laughing. Anyway, whilst Arsenal’s ill-advised attempt at what is a pretty pointless way to take a penalty was terrible, this contribution from the Austrian lower leagues is horrendous.
In order for the ‘trick’ to work, the pass to the runner has to be absolutely perfect and the penalty taker here just passes it straight to the keeper. His run up isn’t bad, as he probably makes the keeper think he is going to smack the ball into the top corner, but the pass is just appalling and the runner has to be held accountable too.
If you’re not confident in trying to pull it off, then don’t bother trying. Tsk.
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