At Hillsborough. Crowd noise pumped through the PA system. Bolton did it too ahead of the semi-final. I trust Duff has the pens thing in good shape? The thought of some of our young 'uns walking from halfway to take one fills me with not a little trepidation..
Duff said they had been practicing them before the semi final second leg, so would imagine they've carried on
Hopefully we've been practising. We should also know who our in game and first 5 takers are. Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.
Thatvus where they have the advantage, having already gone through on them. We haven't had to and hopefully will win without needing to!
They have the advantage of having had plenty of them during the regular season. Our lads are not quite sure what a penalty is.
There was an interesting bit about practicing penalties in a documentary about Euro 96. I think it was Stuart Pearce who complained to El Tel that it was a waste of time, because you couldn’t replicate the pressure, but Venables told Pearce (and all the others) to tell Seaman exactly where he was going to kick and and that he must aim for the spot he said. So suddenly there was an extra dimension of pressure on the taker. Doesn’t quite replicate the match day pressure, but it gave the players something to think about and made them all the more determined to get the shot right.