Russia FIFA 2018 may seem a season away now, but the glory of it remains. Paris, in particular, is still celebrating the win.
I watched the finals between France and Croatia on Sunday morning, wedged little awkwardly between rows of avid football fans, knowing very little about the lineup, strategy, and terms. In one instance, I asked my friend Shayan: “why do they keep shouting Alli’s name?” It turned out that they were shouting allez (French: come on), but not addressing the English midfielder.
It was an exciting match. We shouted and gasped and cheered with the others for a spectacular 90 minutes. Among other things, the game produced an own goal, 2 significant goalie blunders, a historically significant finals goal by a teenager (the first since the 1950s), and a goal count of 6 to boost.
My memory of the game lingered on the penalty shoot diverted by Antoine Griezmann of France. During the 37:53 shootout, Griezmann sent the ball launched straight into the net, allowing France a 2-1 lead. While it is enticing to deliberate on whether the penalty should have been awarded, the decision matrix faced by the 2 players were also capturing.
The below goal illustration shows that Griezmann shot lower left. Sobasic, the Croatian goalie dived lower right, the opposite direction.
Why did Sobasic dive the opposite direction? Some background: The maximum speed a football can reach exceeds 125 mph. At this speed, the ball enters the goal about two-tenths of a second after having been kicked. This means that a goalkeeper must choose the side of the jump before he/she knows exactly where the kick is aimed.[1] Essentially, to score a goal/save, the goalie and the kicker have to guess each other’s mind, just like in a card game. Hitherto to this game in FIFA 2018, Griezmann has shot 3 goals. Among them, 2 were penalty kicks, and all of them on left foot.
We assume that shooting on the natural side is a safer bet. Below table by Chiappori et. al (2002) illustrates that the scoring probability is higher if a right-footer kicker kicks left, whether or not the goalie leaps to the correct side to save it.
Observed Scoring Probabilities by foot and side, table from Chiappori et. al (2002)
Sobasic must have been expecting Griezmann to keep to his natural side, which is “right”, because he is a leftie. However, Griezmann must have also been counting on Sobasic expecting that same thing. Aha! So he went for the riskier bet, and won it. Life awards the adventurous, sometimes.
With this goal, Griezmann’s track record in FIFA 2018 is 4 goals, 3 of them from penalty (I secretly count it as 5, because he forced an own-goal on the Croatians in this very same finals.) Isn’t the French striker quite a great mind game player, despite his fine footwork? I definitely marvelled.
Antoine Griezmann scores at 38 mins. Image: REUTERS/K. Pfaffenbach
Reference:
Chiappori, P. -A., Levitt, S., Groseclose T., “Testing Mixed-Strategy Equilibria When Players Are Heterogeneous: The Case of Penalty Kicks in Soccer. ” The American Economic Review, September 2002, 92(4), pp. 1138 – 1151.
Written by Natasha. Last edited:2018-07-21 09:12:34