The Guardian, UK Penalties are a psychological affair – if they weren’t, then how to explain the number of brilliant players who have made a total mess of things down the years? Roberto Baggio, Franco Baresi, Michel Platini, Ronald de Boer, Roberto Donadoni, Andriy Shevchenko, Steven Gerrard, David Trezeguet – briliant technical players, but all of them have missed in World Cup penalty shootouts. On this occasion the whole thing was a psychological trick, started by Van Gaal in bringing on Krul in the first place, making him seem like an intimidating penalty-saving king even if he wasn’t one, and continued by the goalkeeper by playing with the minds of his opponents. Krul undoubtedly pushed the boundaries of sportsmanship and fair play but he did not break them, rather merely harnessing the nerves of the situation for his own means, and creating fine theatre at the same time. theguardian/football/blog/2014/jul/06/netherlands-keeper-tim-krul-intimidation-tactics?CMP=fb_gu
Posted on: Sun, 06 Jul 2014 18:23:01 +0000