You already had 3 of the 6 regular goals come from penalty kicks, and Messi/Mbappe get to kick them regardless of whether they were the fouled player. Absolutely seems that PKs are the dominant path to victory, I have to imagine the sports analytics community starting to focus on best strategies to maximize PKs rather than traditional goal-scoring.
Perhaps. But when the world was watching, Messi scored a PK in the quarter-final, the semi-final, and the final.
If I am coaching a national team, I am studying every game in this tournament and learning exactly what characteristics, what combo of players, what scenarios are most likely to generate PKs and going all-in with that strategy. Maybe Argentina's coach already did.
If you follow soccer you will know that diving in the box trying to get a PK is a thing since… I don’t know, PKs were added to the rule? Seriously though, I’ve seen my share of games where a player had a good chance of scoring but decide to dive and try to get a PK instead. These days, with VAR, it might not work as well as it did before.
I don't follow soccer and never will. Messi is clearly an all-time great, maybe the GOAT, but that doesn't change the fact that the penalty kicks introduce too much randomness and a lot of "punishment doesn't fit the crime." Plus the fact that Messi or Mbappe get to shoot the PK even if they weren't fouled. That's why "hack-a-Shaq" was a legit strategy, Shaq had to actually shoot the free throws despite being the worst on his team at it.
There is a story that when penalties were first introduced they were seem as unfair by both players and goalkeepers. That was because at the time, the box (or perhaps just the penalty line) used to run from side to side. Rumor has it that players, because of that sense of unfairness, would miss the penalty on purpose.
Eventually the box was reduced and now penalties are a (99%) sure way of scoring.
I don’t know why you mentioned Messi and etc., I was replying to what you said about trying to optimize for PKs during a game.
