Football Rants

Penalties

We all knew this would come up...
Now there are 3 things that annoy me about penalties.

1. The pressure

Obviously taking a penalty is a lot of pressure especially in close games or shootouts and it's pretty nerve racking. And then if you miss you feel supercallousedfragilemystichexedbyhallitosis bad and blame yourself even if it wasn't your fault. People even cry when they miss and sometimes I wish it didn't go to penalties but then I realise that they make the most sense🤔

2. Keepers/Other teams

Now, I've been in a few penalty shootouts and one of the most annoying things is the other team. One thing that gets me is when someone on your team or you miss one and the other team cheer, I get it if it means they've won but otherwise you don't cheer someone's failure. Sure, cheer if your keeper saves it or if your team scores but not if the other team misses. It just makes everyone feel bad. I know personally people in my team have cheered the opposition missing but I always tell them not to. I mean it's common courtesy right? And Keepers that try to put you off, I mean come on it should be a test of skill not who can psych the other out the most (though that is what it usually comes down to, and I'll admit the most fun)

3. Myself

I always freak myself out taking a penalty even though I've done it hundreds of times in practice and at least 10 times in games. This is usually what happens:
What if I miss?
Omg, now I'm definitely going to miss.
What if the keeper saves it?
I'll just look at every corner so they don't know where I'm going.
But now I don't know where I'm going.
Should I change spots?
We're going to lose because I miss this.
Why do I have to take the penalties?
Does you think the keeper knows which way I'm going?
Do the goal looks smaller than before?
Should I go with power so even if they try and save it it might go in?
But what if I'm inaccurate because of the power?
Maybe I should just pass it into the corner?
But what if it's not strong enough?
FOR GOD SAKES WOMAN GET YOURSELF TOGETHER!
You already know where you are shooting.
*passes into corner*
"Nah, it was easy no pressure really.'

So really everything about penalties annoys me. But also they're pretty fun.

Story time
One time, in  a game we had two penalties about 5 minutes apart and I'm the penalty taker for our team. So on the first one I passed it to the right and the keeper almost saved it so on the next one I was freaking out. I couldn't decide if I should change sides or go to the same place because what if the keeper knows what way I shoot now, or what if they figure out that I'm going to change? I was freaking out so I ended up just passing to the left this time and it was actually better than my first one. That was a pretty tense game and we were down 3-1 at the first one so my two penalties got us to a draw (3-3). It was a really tense game and pretty rough but it was fun like always 😂