Achraf Hakimi earned Morocco a place in the World Cup quarter-finals with the cheekiest of spot-kicks, but it’s a far cry from when Inter coach Antonio Conte said: ‘He’s so bad at penalties, everyone else has to die before he’ll take one.’
The Paris Saint-Germain full-back became the hero for his country by completing the penalty shoot-out victory over Spain with a Panenka.
One can imagine – and Croatia international and former Inter player Ivan Perisic certainly did, because he linked Hakimi on Instagram – his thoughts went back to something Conte said during their time together at San Siro.
“The important thing is that Hakimi doesn’t take penalties. He can do free kicks from a distance, but when we all stay behind and practice penalties I think to myself, if we ever went to a tournament where we went to a shoot-out, everyone else has to die before we let Hakimi take one.
“He is truly awful at penalties, worse than I was as a player. He’s growing and can improve a great deal, because sometimes he doesn’t see the pass immediately, he is accustomed to taking a touch and thinking for a while and we can’t do that under pressure, but he is improving in every aspect.”
Cowards shoot penalties in the middle, strong or weak like panenkas, doesn’t matter.
Middle shot is middle shot.
Conte was right.
It takes ba**s to shoot a proper penalty.
Can you explain it Gigi? Your bs doesn’t make any sense.
Conte is a blowhard
Well I guess Hakimi actually improved. Yes Spain obsession with possession was their downfall again but Morocco for me had a clear cut chance that would’ve prevented even penalties.
@manu
Ask any goalkeeper of any level from any place in the world.
They’ll all say the same thing – shooting in the middle is the style of the coward.
Plain and simple.
Doing a panenka doesn’t mean you’re a good penalty taker, it means you shot it in the middle knowing full well the goalkeeper will dive – this is the cowardly way since you don’t have to pick side or try to outsmart the goalkeeper.
Also, don’t come at me with nonsense like “the gk should stay in the middle” – no he shouldn’t, because it’s a penalty, the harshest decision where the goalkeeper is always at a disadvantage.