Each episode of The Long Walk, a brand-new, no-cost docuseries accessible on FIFA+, is introduced by English journalist and author Ben Lyttelton. With the explanation of a penalty kick is as follows: “A player, a goalkeeper, a ball, and a net. It is football reduced to its most basic form.
For players who have been practicing such things since they were very young. Kicking a stationary ball into a goal from a point barely 12 yards out. Looks like a very simple undertaking. But nothing about penalty shootouts is that easy.
This three-part documentary is jam-packed with stories of penalty heroes and, unavoidably, players who turned out to be the show’s antagonists. The creators of the series interview a wide range of legendary players, both past and current. As well as experts and academics from other sectors as they set out to determine what the ideal penalty entails.
What they had to say was as follows.
The Long Walk features academics like Metin Tolan, a physics lecturer at the University of Gottingen in Germany. The specialists like Clive Woodward, a former rugby coach who won the Rugby World Cup with England before taking a job as Southampton’s performance director in the Premier League. Tolan approached the penalty kick from a theoretical standpoint, but Woodward provided a pragmatic one.
The German physicist investigated how football players could benefit from understanding natural laws when it comes to taking penalties. First, he made a completely logical suggestion: before taking a penalty kick, players should put on heavier boots to help their shots travel farther. “I don’t know why they don’t do that,” he remarked.