Following on from my post on how to score past manual goalkeepers on FIFA 11 I thought it would be worth a follow up with a couple of tips on how to hugely increase your chances of scoring penalties past manual goalkeepers and in penalty shootouts.

Scoring penalties against manual keepers is a battle of wits but it’s actually a lot easier than you might think.  Think of it as a game of odds.  (the poker players amongst you will know what I’m talking about…)

The common misconception is that there are only 3 choices that a keeper has to guess from when anticipating a penalty – left, right and centre – giving the goalkeeper a 3:1 chance of making a save.

In reality there are actually 8 different places that you can put a penalty with the keeper needing to push the analogue in a different direction for each giving the goalkeeper an 8:1 chance of actually making the save.

Another factor that goes in your favour is that a lot of keepers still won’t know that you have to push the analogue stick in a certain direction in order to save a certain type of penalty!

Let’s estimate that 1 in 10 goalkeepers are aware of all the directions that you have to move the analogue stick in order to save every type of penalty – that means that if you take this advice and execute it correctly the chances of your penalty being saved could be as big as 80:1!  (Or put another way – statistically you should score 79 out of every 80 penalties that you take!)

Tip for scoring Penalties in FIFA 11

Hit it high, straight down the middle.

I know it sounds risky – what if the keeper doesn’t move?  Well, if the goalkeeper guesses correctly and stands his ground, unless he’s specifically pressed up on the analogue stick the ball will sail past him into the goal anyway and I guarentee not many goalkeepers out there will think to press up on the analogue stick.

All you need to do is aim straight up for about a second – you don’t even need to get the ball that close to the crossbar in order for this to work.

Another common misconception is that you’ve got a better chance of scoring if you aim towards the top corner of the goal.  A goalkeeper is much more likely to subconciously aim diagonally up to save the top corner shots than he is to aim straight up to save the shots down the middle.

Plan B for Penalty Taking

Like everything in FIFA you need to have a plan B.  If you think that you’re up against a good goalkeeper that is wise to this tip then here is my second tip for increasing your chances:

Hit it in the bottom corner to the same side as the foot that you are taking the penalty with.  (NB. Left for left footers, right for right footers)

Here’s how to do this and why.

Firstly, as you press shoot aim directly to the side for about a second and a half then immediately hold straight down until the kick has been taken.

This will result in a penalty towards the bottom corner but because you’ve held directly down it will be right along the floor.

This means that even if the keeper guesses the right direction there’s a large chance that he won’t be able to get down in time to save your shot (nearly all the penalty’s I’ve taken like this have gone in even if the keeper guesses the right way).

Don’t hold diagonally down! This will decrease the consistency of your penalties because the angle you hold will be slightly different for each one – meaning the results will be different for each one.

The reason I suggested that right footers aim to the right and left footers aim to the left is that the curve of the penalty naturally takes the ball away from the goalkeeper meaning you don’t have to get the ball as close to the corner in order for it to go in.

Like I said, this penalty will work on the other side but you will have to be a lot more accurate with your kick.

If you’ve struggled to take penalties before hopefully these tips will make you prolific from 12 yards!

Let me know how you get on or if you have any tips of your own.