hilario and turnbull have saved more penaltys

Conceived?

We feel a bit like that with Reina. He came from Spain with this incredible penalty-saving record but has never really produced the goods with us. It's annoying, especially when Carragher and Skrtel try and give away so many penalties.

The guy you were facing last night - Diego Alves - has saved something ridiculous like 2 out of every 3 penalties he's faced in Spain.

Not a bad shot stopper all night, was he

Cech is an excellent keeper but saving penalties is not one of his strengths.

Maybe we should bring in an expert penalty saving keeper to have on the bench so that if we ever go to a penalty shoot (like we did in Moscow) then we simply sub Cech at the end of the game.

* penalty shoot out

Wonder how Courtois is as a pen man ?

Turnbull

How many goalkeepers have an over 50% save rate? Penalties are luck if you are a goalkeeper and when playing professionally it is nearly impossible to save it. He has saved some when it matters i.e CL final vs Ronaldo and in the last minute vs Fulham last season. His height does not help him for penalties like it did for Cudicini either but every goalkeeper has a slight weakness. he is one of the worlds best and I can't think of who else I would want between the sticks for us.

Hilario is an OK backup and Turnbull is terrible

Penalties are luck if you are a goalkeeper and when playing professionally it is nearly impossible to save it.
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I disagree. Some keepers ARE better than others - in much the same way as they can be better or worse in other departments.

I just checked. Up to the end of last season, Alves had conceded only 5 out of 17 penalties faced in Spain - 10 saved, 2 off target. That's exactly 2 out of 3 of those on target, and a slightly higher overall success rate.

It's a really remarkable rate, but when you compare to others who might have saved just 2 or 3 in 20, it does suggest he's doing something right.

In an interview published a couple of seasons back, Alves said the secret is to hold out as long as possible rather than commit too soon.

It ties in with this comment by Chameleon:

comment by TheChameleonProject (U1847)
posted 21 hours, 12 minutes ago
Not a bad shot stopper all night, was he
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It's generally like that - keepers in Spain are much weaker in the air but go to ground so much later in 1-on-1 situations and really make strikers work for their goals.

In that sense, penalties and 1-on-1 situations in open play are somewhat similar - going to ground or committing to a specific side leaves the striker with a simple finish.

The longer you delay committing, the more doubts the striker will have about where to place his shot. These are split-second situations where even a minor doubt can make you mistime/mishit/misplace your shot. This is something Torres also pointed this out in his time at Liverpool too when he explained why he found it easier to score in England than in Spain.

According to my FM team, we should buy Akinfeev purely for shot stopping.

I'm sure he'd be happy to be a back-up and only come on as a sub if we need to stop a penalty.

Akinfeev would only move somewhere to be first choice

@itsonlyagame

This is something Torres also pointed this out in his time at Liverpool too when he explained why he found it easier to score in England than in Spain.

Doesn't explain his wonderful finish against De Gea, plus his awful miss after rounding him as well

Nope, doesn't explain a lot of Torres's misses - what does though, is that he's not as clinical a striker as most in England seem to think.

We already knew that over here when Liverpool paid 30M for him.

We even coined a famous saying when he became an overnight success:

"The PL's pi.sh - even Torres scores for fun there!"

Diego Forlan couldn't manage it here

He was young.

Wasn't Torres in Spain

BK

I was being sardonic. 'Cause, like, everyone knows FM is the best way to tell if a player is any good.

Torres played 6 seasons and over 200 games for Atletico.

Atletico are/were are mid table team, so to have his stats for his age there is impressive. Forlan was playing for Utd who constantly win the title is th pi.sh league

^^^

It's common knowledge here that Atleti's managers were under club orders to start Torres or get sacked and that Atleti's entire squad were instructed to dive in the area if they couldn't find a pass-line to Torres so that the lad could take the penalty.


If Forlán had played regularly his stats would've been much better. He won 2 Golden Shoes playing for mid-table teams here, and you just need to youtube his seasons - half of his goals were from midfield.

BTW George, seeing you mentioned Courtois earlier, he's made a great impression so far at Atleti. From what I've seen, he also seems to manage to stay on his feet in 1-on-1 situations about 1/2 hour longer than your average English goalie.

Do English goalies still drink to steady their nerves before matches?

Interesting article on AS.com today in the wake of Messi's equalling Kubala's goal haul.

It's titled "Alcántara, Barcelona's forgotten goalscorer", and tells the story of Paulino Alcántara, who according to Barça's own website scored 357 in 357 games for them.

Thing is nowadays, figures are taken from the Liga, the Copa and European comps and of those, only the Copa was played in his days - he scored most in competitions that are no longer considered official, such as the Catalonian championship.

In 1922, a goal he scored in a game vs France in Bordeaux allegedly ripped the net, and from that day on was nicknamed "The Netbuster".