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Guide to stopping a Payet free kick

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TwoBob Wilson’s Guide to attempt to stop a Dimitri Payet free-kick. 

Don’t foul in the wrong area

The placement of the free-kick makes a huge difference even to a specialist like Dimitri Payet. If it’s straight onto the goal, it’s easier for the goalkeeper because you know he will always go for the wall and try to get it up and down. The problem is at an angle, because he has a bit longer to get the ball up and down. The free-kick at 19 yards I don’t think Payet would score. Anything too close is difficult. They usually need at least 20 yards to the point they are hoping to hit. The ideal distance is more or less where Payet was against Crystal Palace last weekend. From anywhere that is at an angle – and anything up to four yards outside the post – you are in real danger.

Organise your wall correctly

The wall is usually made up of four, five or six players. You try to get height in the wall. If you have a small team you are in trouble and, if he knows you are a team that jumps in the wall, he could go on the ground. You try and get the outer man about a yard outside the post to make sure there is no space on the near post. What has made it harder since the World Cup is the spray that makes the wall remain 10 yards back. Before, the defenders would creep forward a yard when the referee turned his back and that made it far, far more difficult for the free-kick takers. The fact that it really now is 10 yards to the wall has made a huge difference.

Don’t attempt to catch it

It is incredible how the balls have evolved. I remember once telling a guy at Nike, ‘This is a joke ball for us goalies. The goal is 192 square feet, it’s big enough already without you making a ball like this’. The movement is just so unbelievable. There are people like Payet – and Alexis Sanchez – who can move it up and down and side to side. And you, as a goalie, honestly do not know how that will be when the ball is struck. Goalkeepers in my era prided ourselves on catching it. You dare not do that now. The modern goalkeeper has to play safe if it is hit with any pace. Knock it for a corner, knock it out for a throw-in, knock it anywhere to the side.

Hold your nerve…and hope

Most goalkeepers, before it is struck, step half a yard to one side, usually the right. It’s about keeping your nerve as he is about to hit it so you do not make the movement almost behind the wall because then you are opening up the far top corner and I don’t think you will ever get back. It’s having the nerve to say, ‘Hang on, if it goes to my side, that is considered my responsibility’. But they practice to the degree that they know, if they get it right, the ball will do those almost ridiculous things. Payet’s free-kicks are out of the ordinary. If he gets it right, you are on a wing and a prayer.

Published by Bob Wilson in the Telegraph

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I am Season Ticket Holder in West stand lower at the London Stadium and before that, I used to stand in the Sir Trevor Brooking Lower Row R seat 159 in the Boleyn Ground and in the Eighties I stood on the terraces of the old South Bank. I am a presenter on the West Ham Podcast called MooreThanJustaPodcast.co.uk. A Blogger on WestHamTillIdie.com a member of the West Ham Supporters Advisory Board (SAB), Founder of a Youtube channel called Mr West Ham Football at http://www.youtube.com/MrWestHamFootball,

I am also the associate editor here at Claret and Hugh.

Life Long singer of bubbles! Come on you Irons!

Follow me at @Westhamfootball on twitter

0 comments

  • mattefumi27 says:

    Guide to stopping a Payet free kick: make the sign of the cross and pray. lol 😉

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