Where to Aim If in a Shootout
The big soccer match ended regulation in a tie. It’s now the shootout, and your turn has come up. It’s you and the goalie. A battle of skill — but even more a battle of the mind.
Where are you going to shoot: to the right or to the left? If you’re right-footed, your best shot will be to your left side of the goal. But the goalie knows that, and most likely that’s where he or she will be diving. So maybe you should shoot for your right. But the goalie also knows you think that’s the side most likely to be left unattended, so that might be the way to dive.
used with permission
Which way: right or left?
Recently I had a long drive and got to catch up on my three favorite podcasts: Prairie Home Companion, This American Life, and Freakonomics.
In one of the podcasts of the latter, they explained that research has shown which is better. It’s neither.
The best place to kick is right up the middle. As hard as players kick, and as close as they kick to the goal, there are really three spots to choose (in addition to high or low): left, right, or center.
And since a goalie is almost always going to be diving right or left, the middle will nearly always work. The people at Freakonomics have unique research to back it up. (Those wacky economists!)
So why don’t people shoot straight? For fear of embarrassment! If you kick left and the goalie dives to the right and blocks your ball — well, you did your best. If you shoot to your right and the goalie dives left with the same result — again, too bad. But you played the odds.
However, if you kick up the middle and the goalie happens to freeze and stop it, the fans will go nuts. “Don’t kick up the middle! Every 5 year old knows you have to pick a side!” You could be benched the next game. Endorsements might be pulled. It would look like the most fundamental mistake possible — even though statistically it’s the best shot.
Which makes me wonder . . .
How much of what we choose to do is to avoid the possibility of embarrassment?
It’s why I don’t call anyone who isn’t a close friend by name at church!
another similar question, but still worth asking: how much of what we choose NOT to do is to avoid the possibility of embarrassment. if embarrassment is at stake and i change my behavior (which i don’t think is all that often), i find that i’m not DOING anything; rather, i’m attempting to sit still and not do anything that might risk making me look silly.
on another note… having played and coached goalkeeper(s) most of my life, i’ve been giving some thought to this kick-it-up-the-middle thing. and this is probably not of interest to many, but i’ll include my thoughts all the same:
1) the embarrassment thing works both ways. a keeper doesn’t want to stay in the middle and not dive, because he’ll look ridiculous for not even trying if the kick goes right or left. as if he got scared and froze up.
2) keepers only have to choose a side and dive if the shooter is talented and strong. with less experienced players (think up to high school level play with exceptions) there’s often enough time to react to balls coming in slower. especially if the keeper’s good at seeing where and how the shooter’s about to place his non-kicking foot.
3) but this kick-it-up-the-middle thing truly might give shooters a clear advantage… for a while. but once doing so has become an accepted option, keepers would simply be forced to choose between 3 alternatives — stay, left, or right. shooters would still have an advantage at 66% over 50%,* but shooting up the middle would likely be no greater advantage than left or right (after a time).
4) all of that said, a shot to the side and against the post is still by far the best shot (especially upper corner) — because a keeper diving “can’t” save that ball anyway, no matter the side to which he chooses to dive.
* not a true percentage, if for no other reason because a dive to the proper side does not at all guarantee a save. but it’s interesting because for fear of looking silly, shooters are failing to give themselves an advantage.
Hey PreacherMike, I love your soccer story. May I make it more complicated? To relate it to the Christian life, if the opposite of embarrassment is honor, we chose before the kick whose honor we live for, the crowd our team members or the coach. If we please the coach, nothing else matters. And on winning, reacting (performing) for the applause of the crowd or a pat on the back from team members is always momentary. Pleasing the coach of our life may appear foolish at the moment but it is powerful forever.
Speaking of “knowing where to shoot,” here are some sane words from our Conciliator-in-Chief, words predating this weekend’s Arizona massacre by a couple of years. http://on.wsj.com/bwpVM
“Fundamental rhetorical change,” indeed…perhaps starting at the top.
Cheerfully,
qb
James – About time we heard from some who really knows soccer! I coached basketball and baseball for many years, but I tried soccer only once. I decided that one must understand the sport before coaching it!
Shelley – I’m guessing you’re not the only one! It does take some courage when people may expect us to know them.
Dennis – I like the idea of playing to an audience of one. I like the idea — I’m not always good at it!
And qb, you’re right: There will be a lot of scrubbing of sites and re-forming of rhetoric (I hope!). It would be nice to think that there will be no more crosshair ads, no more inflammatory language (“reload and aim” . . . “Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly”), and no more knife/gun illustrations! Time to take it down a notch on both sides. Bring on intelligent discourse! Quit demonizing/hitlerizing “the other.” (Not you, qb. I mean generally — in the sour discourse of our nation.) But it’s also helpful to remember that this shooter wasn’t a rational follower of rhetoric from the right or left. He was deranged. The tragedy reminds me of the great need for the cruciform message of Jesus — and ultimately for God’s restoration of all things.
Next time I’m kicking up the middle. If the goalie doesn’t budge and I look like an idiot, I’m blaming you! Even better I’ll explain, “Well there are these economists at Freakonomics….”
I was going to leave a comment but I was afraid I would embarrass myself.
How much of what we choose to do is to avoid the possibility of embarrassment?
As for elders, pretty much all the time!
No need to blame Freakonomics. Blame Chiappori, P. A., et al., “Testing mixed-strategy equilibria when players are heterogeneous: the case of penalty kicks in soccer,” The American Economic Review 92(4):1138-1151. Somehow, thanks to Dr. Beck’s extensive blog offerings on game theory some months ago, qb ended up with a reprint of this article right on his desk, right now. See Table 4, p. 1148.
The fly in the ointment? If the kicker kicks up the middle and the goalie stays put in the middle, the data in the article show precisely ZERO goals scored. That’s not true of right/left kicks when the goalie guesses correctly and goes the same way as the kick.
game-theoretic qb
On the other hand, though, the natural curve of the ball is R-L for a right-footer and L-R for a left-footer striking the ball with the instep (the classic technique). A right-footer aiming right will therefore have to start his shot outside the goal and bring it in; if he aims L, he starts his shot toward the middle and bends it out. That probably accounts for the fact that right-footers shooting right have the lowest success rate when the goalie guesses right, and the left/left/left analog is also lowest in both the column and the row of the payoff matrix, for the same reasons. We feel odd aiming right at the goalie to account for the banana, so we tend to try the least effective option, starting the shot outside the goal hoping the banana brings it far enough in. Stupid, but rational!
qb