This is one of the greatest concerns at the currently undergoing Women's Soccer World Championship. Missed penalty kicks were repeated because the goalies were standing in front of the goal line at the time that the ball was contacted. An "Eleven-meter lunacy" as titled by the "Hamburg Morningpost" newspaper, "The bureaucrats have taken over", according to Die Zeit.
Publication in the Journal "Frontiers in Psychology"
In a current study, the Chair of Performance Analysis and Sports Informatics at the Technical University of Munich examined the execution of penalty kicks. "None of the 618 penalty kicks was performed in accordance with the regulations," says Dr. Otto Kolbinger. This scientific staff member under Full Prof. Dr. Martin Lames published an essay in the magazine "Frontiers in Psychology" together with Dr. Michael Stöckl (University of Vienna). This peer-reviewed specialist magazine has an impact factor of 2.089.
"At our Chair, we are studying the question of how rules in sports games are actually respected in practice and what violations are thereby accepted. For this, we have introduced the concept of 'trivial offenses'," explains Prof. Lames.
Issues of the 'trivial offences'
Stöckl and Kolbinger analyzed all of the penalty kicks executed in the first leagues of Germany, Italy, England and Austria, as well as those in the DFB Cup during the 2015/16 and 2016/17 seasons, and at the beginning of the 2017/18 season. In the case of a penalty kick, the goalie must be on the line, and no player may enter the penalty area beforehand. None of the penalty kicks were carried out in accordance with the rules. "The fact that the goalkeeper is not on the line is almost a classic. Just like players who go into the penalty area too early," Kolbinger explains. Only in two per cent of the cases did the referees formally decide correctly. "These are the situations in which only defenders go into the penalty area, but when the shooter is successful. Here, it is correct to evaluate the goal according to the rules," explains Kolbinger.
"The study shows that there are widespread breaches to the rules that are fully accepted," explains Lames. "In the interest of the sport associations, it cannot be that rules are not respected. This is, so to speak, how "minor offenses" arise, which are then problematic when they are suddenly called - as in the Women's World Cup. The referees then become the scapegoats, although they actually only supervise compliancy with the regulations. We therefore recommend that such 'trivial offenses' should, at best, not be created, but rather that rules should be adapted directly or simply be complied with," says Kolbinger.
To the Homepage of the Chair for Performance Analysis and Sports Informatics
To the Article in the journal "Frontiers in Psychology"
Contact:
Dr. Otto Kolbinger
Chair of Performance Analysis and Sports Informatics
Georg-Brauchle-Ring 60/62
80992 Munich
Tel.: 089 289 24502
E-mail: Otto.Kolbinger(at)tum.de
Text: Dr. Fabian Kautz
Photo: TUI
Captions:
Prof. Dr. Martin Lames