Should you consider penalties when betting on football matches? 1xbet app online
The article provides statistics on the number of penalties awarded and taken in the leading European leagues. We will consider the question of how important it is to take into account possible penalties when placing bets.
Football is the lowest scoring sport of all, and sometimes teams only take one accurate shot at each other's goal during the entire game, resulting in a goal. Sometimes this shot is taken from the 11-meter penalty kick. Let us recall that the referee awards a penalty kick when any serious foul occurs in the penalty area of the team whose player has violated the rules.
If the ball returns into the field after a penalty kick (for example, from the goal post or from the goalkeeper's hands), play continues without interruption; the only exception is when the penalty kicker touches the ball first, in which case the match is stopped and the ball is given to the opponents.
Frequency of penalty awards
How advise 1xbetapp.run the number of penalties per season can vary greatly depending on the league, and the percentage of penalty kicks also "floats". However, this percentage is not as high as it might initially seem, and an 11-meter penalty for the team that violated the rules in its penalty area is not a death sentence at all.
Table 1 below shows the average number of penalties awarded per game in Europe's top five leagues over the last three seasons and the percentage of penalties converted:
Teams that benefit most from penalties
Not every football team takes as many penalties as they have awarded against them. Knowing which teams benefit most from penalties, bettors can use this information to improve the accuracy of their football predictions. Table 2 shows the ten teams from the top European leagues whose odds for penalties awarded to them and against them are the highest:
Penalty kick strategy for different players
Of course, it is impossible to predict whether a penalty will be awarded in a particular match, but predicting whether a specific player will score a penalty against a specific goalkeeper is generally easier than it seems. Most regular penalty takers have their own strategy for taking penalties, which also depends on who is "in the frame."
As a rule, a right-footed player, when kicking the ball from the penalty spot, directs it to the left side of the goal, and vice versa. According to statistics, a football player kicks to the "correct" side in 61.5% of cases. Meanwhile, to achieve the goal, the choice of which part of the goal to kick must be absolutely arbitrary.
In the English Premier League, players like Yaya Toure, Mark Noble and Harry Kane have a higher penalty conversion rate than other regular penalty takers – this is because these players use a mixed strategy when taking their kicks, making it almost impossible for goalkeepers to guess where the ball will go. The English championship already has the highest penalty conversion rate (80%), and for these players it is a whopping 85%!
Meanwhile, penalty takers such as Eden Hazard, Christian Benteke and Mario Balotelli prefer to wait for the goalkeeper to dive in the hope of guessing the direction of the ball before taking the shot – a ploy that often works.
A little bit about penalty series
Let's also not forget that in knockout football matches in most tournaments, in the event of a draw in regular and extra time, a series of post-match penalties is appointed - usually five kicks for each of the teams; in the event of a tie, this series continues until the first miss.
Penalties in this format have a much smaller impact on bets than those called during the match, although punters who prefer to bet on the outright market may argue with this statement.
If we calculate the average percentage of penalty kicks for the five football leagues, the figures for which are given in Table 1, we get a figure of 78.5%. At the same time, for post-match series, this figure drops to 70%, which is not surprising. Two factors play a decisive role here: firstly, the kick is taken by players who rarely or never take penalties in a game (it happens that goalkeepers themselves approach the penalty mark, which causes increased interest among fans), and, secondly, additional pressure on the kickers, because a miss can sometimes mean elimination from an important tournament or, say, defeat in the final.
Some facts
So, we hope you have drawn conclusions about the value of penalties in football matches, and it is up to you to take this information into account when placing your predictions. In conclusion, we will provide some interesting facts about 11-meter kicks.
- Englishman Matthew Le Tissier is the best penalty taker in Europe who has taken more than 20 penalties in total – he has converted 48 of his 49 shots, or 98%;
- Yaya Toure is the best penalty taker in the top leagues whose streaks are still ongoing - he has scored 15 consecutive penalties;
- One of the unluckiest players in terms of penalty kicks is considered to be Martin Palermo - back in 1999, he managed to miss three times in one match (Argentina - Colombia) from the 11-meter mark;
- Brazilian Diego Alves, who played for Almeria and Valencia, has the best percentage of saved penalties among goalkeepers in the five leading European leagues – 47% (23 out of 49);
- Mechelen's Jean-Francois Gillet saved three penalties against Anderlecht in 2015 and Dundee United's Cammy Bell saved three penalties against Dunfermline a year later;
- five penalties in 90 minutes (a record) were awarded in the Crystal Palace v Brighton match in 1989;
- Mohamed Jedidi retaken the same penalty six times in 2004, which was cancelled by the referee due to various violations (this happened in the match between Tunisia and Montenegro at the Olympic Games).
