Who’ll be the first to try a Calvente this season?
Germany are brilliant at them, England can’t score them for toffee and Spanish Under 19s do it better than the rest. Simon Head looks at the penalty kick.
Ezequiel Calvente. Remember the name. The Spanish U19 player stepped up to take a penalty against Italy in the FIFA Under 19 World Cup last week and scored one of the most audacious penalties ever seen. Check out the video below. Will anyone in England have the stones (or the ability) to take a penalty like this?
Perhaps the founder of the surprise penalty was Czech star Antonin Panenka, whose memorable chipped penalty against the Germans to win the 1976 European Championships for Czechoslovakia (apologies for the Tina Turner backing track, nothing to do with us, honest!).
Then there was Socrates, whose nonchalent one-step penalty against Poland in the 1986 World Cup in Mexico left fans stunned.
But while all the fancy-dan stuff can look good, there’s still nothing better than simply smashing it, and as far as I’m concerned nobody’s taken a more perfect penalty than former Sheffield Wednesday keeper Kevin Pressman. Keep watching after Pressman’s incredible effort and you’ll see Chris Waddle reliving his personal penalty shootout hell…