The book Soccernomics [0], has a whole chapter dedicated to both the psychology and game theory of penalty kicks.
Long story short:
- Let's simplify to the options being: you kick either left or right
- The goalie has to pick which side BEFORE you kick b/c by the time you kick, it's too late for the goalie to react
- Your basic strategies are: always left, always right, alternate left/right or try to be as random as possible (which is assumed to be hard for humans)
The most fascinating part of their analysis was that elite level soccer players are, essentially, random. I believe they also mention that it's one of the few times in human studies where humans have been this close, statistically, to be able to generate random outcomes.
They also go on to wonder if being able to generate random outcomes leads to you being an elite penalty kick specialist or if, over time, you develop that skill as part of the basket of abilities needed to compete at that level
Long story short:
- Let's simplify to the options being: you kick either left or right
- The goalie has to pick which side BEFORE you kick b/c by the time you kick, it's too late for the goalie to react
- Your basic strategies are: always left, always right, alternate left/right or try to be as random as possible (which is assumed to be hard for humans)
The most fascinating part of their analysis was that elite level soccer players are, essentially, random. I believe they also mention that it's one of the few times in human studies where humans have been this close, statistically, to be able to generate random outcomes.
They also go on to wonder if being able to generate random outcomes leads to you being an elite penalty kick specialist or if, over time, you develop that skill as part of the basket of abilities needed to compete at that level
0 - https://amzn.to/3jKr4RK