Euro 2016 is around the corner, and with international tournaments comes the real possibility of England getting knocked out in a penalty shootout. In the 1990 World Cup semi-final, they lost to Argentina. Then in Euro 1996, again in the semi-final, they were defeated by the Germans on penalties. The English team has not made it to a semi-final of a major tournament since, mostly because they lost to penalties against Argentina in the 1998 world cup, then to Portugal in Euro 2004 and the 2006 World Cup, and finally Italy in Euro 2012. That’s quite a dismal run.
A group of physics students at the University of Leicester have taken it upon themselves to lift England’s curse when it comes to penalty kicks. They have concocted a formula that can enable footballers to take the perfect penalty, and score every time.
Penalties are viewed as a duel between the shooter and goalkeeper. Strikers sometimes pause their run to see which way the keeper will go, while keepers try to throw strikers off their game through some mind games. But it seems science can give strikers the ultimate edge.
The formula allows footballers to know where and how hard to kick the ball to score every time. It takes into account the size of the ball, the density of the air and the distance from goal.
For the math wizzes out their, here’s the formula:
According to the 25 year old Jasmine Sandhu, a PhD student specializing in physics with space science and technology at the University of Leicester, this formula will help players almost bend the ball to their will: “this formula may seem complicated, but in reality it is a mathematical expression of what good footballers do every time they line up a free kick or a penalty.”
She continues to explain that “ if a player standing 15 meters away from the by-line kicked an average football so that it was travelling at a velocity of 35 meters per second and hand an angular velocity of 10 revolutions per second, the ball would bend around 5 meters towards the goal.”
Most players will look at this and think it makes no difference. This does not take into account the pressure, the fans around the stadium, the immensity of the moment. Would Roberto Baggio have scored that famous last penalty in the 1994 world cup if he had known about the formula? Formulas would not prevent John Terry from slipping in 2008 to miss that crucial penalty in the UEFA Champions league final.
I usually side with science, even though this formula does not take into consideration that there is a keeper on the other side of the equation. But let’s face it, the England team will need all the help it can get this upcoming summer.