The Castrol Index has released some fascinating figures prior to the Quarter Final stage of Euro 2008, covering every possibility of penalty taking and saving as the grim prospect of cagey matches played to draw looms ever nearer.

The old adage of ‘just whack it down the middle’ might not cut as much mustard amongst the actual players as many commentators think, and to prove them wrong, here’s some rather attractive stats:

Hitting it straight and true seems only to be favoured 11.9% of the time, with spot-kickers favouring the bottom corners. The next image, however, shows that maybe they should have opted for a different approach.

It seems that the ‘down the middle’ option isn’t the best way after all, as presumably keepers diving left or right can still make the save with their legs. Bottom corners (the most popular for takers) also seems to be a safe bet. Trying to lift the ball above a diving keeper has the best pay off in terms of finding the back of the net, but whilst the reward may be high, the risk of missing the target also looms large.

If Portugal wins a spot kick in their Quarter Final with Germany, the figures show that the best option for Ronaldo (the most likely to step up and take the penalty) would be to go to Lehmann’s right. He seems particularly susceptible in this area, but as the majority of Ronaldo’s penalty success in the last two years has been precisely here, the German stopper might pre-empt him and go this way. When Ronaldo tried to change tactics against Barcelona in the Champions League however, and attempt a high risk, high reward kick, he missed the target.

In fact, looking at all the figures, the over arching message is that a penalty taker (especially Ronaldo against Lehmann) should categorically NOT fire it straight down the middle.

Once again, statistics triumph over the long-held ‘wisdom’ of the bloke in the pub. Take that, bloke in the pub.

Stats powered by Castrolindex.com