Goalkeepers bend the new penalties law

The hands that Courtois and Edgar Badía took out this Saturday to stop their penalties are proof that goalkeepers have managed to adapt to the reform of rule 14 of football. A change in the law of maximum penalties that came into effect last season and that the goalkeepers raised a cry in the sky criticizing the change. Last season there was the lowest percentage of penalties saved in more than five years. Only 13.42%. This season, the average is already over 20%.

The goalkeepers' guild has had to adapt to the change in football laws. Since last season, the goalkeeper “must have at least part of one foot in direct contact or on the goal line at the moment the thrower kicks the ball”. Something that must be met tiptoe with VAR surveillance. Even the IFAB, the international body that draws up and modifies the rules governing all football matches in the world, issued a circular for all competitions in which it underlined the importance of the VAR monitoring and enforcing this rule. Its rigorousness led to the lowest penalty average in Spain (13.42%) since the 12-13 season (9.17%). The 20 maximum penalties stopped the previous season crashed, being the year in which more penalties had been designated (124).

“This is a real injustice for the goalkeeper. Stopping a penalty is very difficult and if they limit the movements of two centimeters even more difficult. Review the norm, “criticized the former Spanish goalkeeper Andrés Palop last July. And he was not the only one, this was said by Villarreal exporter Andrés Fernández, now in Huesca:”The one who has made this rule has never been a goalkeeper, because it is difficult to stay on the line and launch reliably to be able to stop a penalty. “

A season later, the goalkeepers themselves have shown that despite the difficulty that the variation in the rule entailed, they have managed to adapt and bend it. The average of penalties stopped rises to 20.25% after clearing 16 of the 79 maximum penalties thrown. Something that shows that penalties are not a matter of luck, but of training. It is also notable in the number of penalties that have had to be repeated for overtaking at the request of the VAR: last year it intervened for this reason up to 4 times and this season it only goes for one.

This season, the 16 penalties saved were the work of twelve different goalkeepers. The one that has demonstrated its reliability the most by stopping throws from eleven meters has been Rui SIlva, who has achieved it up to three times. Bono and Edgar Badía, complete the podium with two. Remiro, Jaume Doménech, Courtois, Bravo, Unai Simón, Joel Robles, Sergio Herrera, Ángel Jiménez and Dmitrovic have achieved it on one occasion.