When I could save your penalty...

... it's maybe time to think again.

Some people laughed at the penalty-taking during the Women’s Euros, but there surely can be nothing quite as funny as watching Vitinha miss from the spot.

PSG’s midfield musketeer is not content with simply beating a goalkeeper from 12 short yards, he wants to tease and toy with his prey like a swanky matador. Against Spurs, he very nearly got gored.

Vitinha is not the only footballer intent on making penalty-taking look a piece of cake. Such is his eye for the dramatic, he doesn’t even look at the ball or the goal.

Instead, his peepers are gloatingly fixed on those of the helpless keeper who he stalks with his artful tippy-toed approach and stares out until the public execution is over. On Wednesday, he got a good view of Tottenham’s keeper celebrating after his magic bullet missed the target completely.

Why would you want to try to make elite football look easy when it’s not?

If there were additional style marks awarded for original penalties, ok. If FIFA decided to double the value of a goal scored with a high degree of difficulty, I could understand the trend towards taking ‘no-looky’ penalties with no run-up. (And don’t put that idea past Gianni Infantino by the way).

But, right now, a successful penalty counts one whether you clip it or clout it. Vitinha’s previous cunning plan was ripped up by the hands of David Raya in May’s Champions League semi-final, remember. It’s worth noting that the 4 successful PSG penalties that followed his miss were all struck firmly. Once bitten.

I’d like to think that such a naturally intelligent player has arrived at his modus operandi via hours of thought and practice, but there is more than a hint of scorn and contempt in the prosecution of his penalties that sets Vitinha up for a fall when they go badly wrong. It’s like it’s all a bit of a ruse to him… a jolly prank to kid the kidder in the gloves hopping around on the goal-line.

It's as if he’s had a bet that he can score without the goalkeeper moving. Well, when the fun stops… stick your laces through it.

Everyone likes a bit of panache and fantasy at the heart of their midfield and Vitinha has plenty of both, but he just gives the impression that he’s a bit too cool for school when the ball is on the spot and the next move is his… almost like a champion golfer that is being asked to hole a tap-in putt. Really? Let’s see what he learnt in class in Udine.

I’m not suggesting that there is only one way to take a penalty. The prolific Mo Salah gave his spot-kick some welly in the Community Shield shoot-out last weekend and it has just passed the European Space Station. I bet the Palace keeper didn’t have ‘moon shot’ written on his water bottle.

Thanks to a reduction in replays, all the knots that have been tied in the handball law and the prying eye of VAR, there are more and more penalties to be taken and studied. The appointment of the Premier League’s first penalty coach is no doubt imminent. Or how about NFL-style ‘special teams’ that come onto the field whenever the referee points to the spot?

Football is a wonderfully instinctive game. Some of the greatest players we have seen have little or no idea how or why they are capable of instant skills beyond the dreams of the mere humans around them. But innate talent is maybe compromised when the music stops and you take the long walk from the linked arms on the halfway line to register your tick or cross in the shoot-out grid.

It is only natural that you develop a personal way of dealing with the highly individual trial that has been devised to settle outcomes in a team sport. Jasprit Bumrah has a unique bowling action, Scottie Scheffler has a golf swing all of his own. There is no right or wrong way. Good penalties are ones that go in. Period. And Vitinha’s ‘wait-and-see’ approach worked well at Anfield and on five other occasions last season.

There might be a good aerodynamic reason why Chloe Kelly begins her penalty ritual by lifting a leg higher than I’ve been able to for a couple of decades. I somehow doubt it - not least because every penalty-taker would be doing it if there were - but why would she change now? It’s part of her routine and therefore the building of the mentality she requires in order to pass the penalty test.

Even when the Italian keeper saved her penalty in the semi-final, she still celebrated the successful follow-up with all the bravado of someone that doesn’t believe she can miss. I can see her now motioning for us all to ‘calm down’ before leaning on the corner-flag with a knowing look as if Laura Giuliani’s parry was all part of the plan and everything was under control. Perhaps penalty-takers need a bit of that front.

Maybe my suspicions about Vitinha’s motives for wanting to score with a bit of housery are shaped by the insecurities of someone that’s never been good enough for top level sport and would rather strike out with decorum and humility than risk the disgrace of trying to hit it out of the ballpark and missing completely. I’m a lay-up golfer, I kind of like my limits. I was always a side-foot penalty-taker.

It is perhaps for that reason that I do believe the first requirement of any professional penalty-kick is that it would beat me. Hit it hard at me and I’ll get out of the way! What I can’t abide is a tricky trickler that even my limited athleticism could find a means to stop if I happened to guess right. The ultimate insult I could pay to some of Vitinha’s rolls of the dice is that I might have saved them. And that really would be unforgivable.

I am in no position to offer him or any pro baller advice but if Vitinha asked, I’d suggest he had a few beers with Lucy Bronze before he takes his next penalty.