It’s all eyes on you and the pressure is immense as you walk towards the penalty spot. But how do you cope? Matt Le Tissier tells us his secrets to becoming ‘Le God’ of penalties.
Matt Le Tissier’s 16-year career at Southampton earned him the nickname ‘Le God’. It wasn’t only his loyalty that earned him the name, but also the mind-blowing skill to effortlessly weave through defenders and score screamers, and that’s not to mention his penalty success.
No one comes close to Matt Le Tissier’s penalty record.
Unlike anything else in football, penalties aren’t quite subject to polarised opinion. The stats really do speak for themselves. He scored a whopping 47 out of 48 penalties in topflight English football, with 24 being in the Premier League from ‘92 onwards.
That is a conversion rate of 97.9% and when you compare that to Alan Shearer who scored the most penalties in the Premier League, Shearer’s conversion rate stands at 83.6%.
Currently, there are only two players with a 100% record of shooting from 12-yards and they are Yaya Toure and Ivan Toney, but we’ve got to be careful when bringing them into the debate.
Both have only scored 11 penalties in the Premier League, and whilst they haven’t missed a single one, who knows if they would be able to beat Le Tiss’ record.
After hanging up the boots in 2002, you can still find Matt precisely chipping from distance and driving the ball forward, in the form of another sport he loves…
Golf. It’s the only transfer move he’s made, going from his beloved club of Southampton to the golf club.
Then, after Matt finished on the course, we sat down with him to find out the secrets of what makes the best penalty taker the Premier League has ever seen.
The first season you were the chosen penalty taker there were eight penalties, but it was a while until you had your next penalty. How did you train for the moment in the meantime?
I used to get the youth team goalkeeper to go in goal and I would take 10 penalties against him, and I’ll give them a fiver for everyone that he saved. You’ll never be able to replicate the pressure of an actual game, but I didn’t want to give any money away. So, I put a little bit pressure on myself and also the youth team goalkeeper, as that was big money to them in those days. Five pounds to save a penalty that was about a fifth of his wages.
When the referee blows their whistle and points to the spot, what would go through your mind?
I used to envisage the crowd erupting when the ball hits the back of the net, because that’s one of the greatest feelings that a footballer can have. When you score a goal and 95% of the crowd go mad, it’s an unbelievable buzz. I’ve never taken drugs, but I’m guessing it’s probably something along those lines. It’s an unbelievable natural high. Even away from home, the booing and everything, I don’t really remember actually taking any of that in. As a professional, you just focus on the job in hand, and you’ve got a free shot from 12 yards to score a goal. So, if you’re a professional footballer, I think you should be scoring at least eight or nine times out of 10.
Did you have a favourite corner and how did you choose where to strike the ball?
My favourite corner was the goalies left. The reason why I chose that spot as my favourite corner is because I used to side-foot the ball and it would have a little bit of curl on it where it’s going away from the goalkeeper. The other thing that it did is, if I’m shaping to hit the ball into that corner and I see the goalkeeper move a little bit too early towards that corner, I can wait right up until a split second before I strike the ball to whip my foot around the ball and pop it into the other corner. It takes a lot of bottle to do that.
There’s been some stories of footballers having unusual rituals and superstitions. Was there anything that you would do before each game?
There was a period of time where I would actually quite enjoy around ten minutes to kick-off. All the players were getting hyped up with the adrenaline started to flow and everyone’s shouting in the change room, but that wasn’t really my thing. So, I used that time to just take myself out of the changing room and go and sit on the physios’ couch and have a little lie down and just calm yourself down. Even as a captain I was like that. I felt like I played my best football when I was relaxed and calm, not when I was hyped up ready to go and kick the sh*t out someone.
There are always big pressure moments when it comes to penalties. Especially, on the last day of the 93/94 season to keep Southampton in the Premier League, how did you deal with the pressure?
I think it probably had something to do with my upbringing. I grew up in a very very relaxed environment on the island of Guernsey. It was a pretty laid-back way of life over there and I’ve always had a fairly laid-back attitude to life, and to football. I think because of that, it helped me to deal with pressure because I didn’t really feel pressure. I didn’t really have that overwhelming feeling. I wasn’t afraid to miss. Although I was really confident in my own ability, I was never afraid to miss. And I think that’s a trait that most good goal scorers will have.
Psychology wasn’t as big of a thing as it is now as every club needs to have a sports psychologist, but how big of a part did psychology play in your penalties?
I think the psychology part for me was quite a big part of it. I think the reason why my penalty record was so good. I actually looked forward to taking penalties and enjoyed being put in that situation. I liked the pressure of that situation. I was a goal scorer, and it was the easiest chance I was going to get the whole match. So, I had a very positive mindset and approach towards it.
Was there a time that you allowed any negative thoughts?
I only allowed that to happen once. It was when I took a penalty in 1994 against Bruce Grobbelaar at The Dell and he was playing for Liverpool. I actually played on the same team as Bruce in a football league representative game over in Ireland. In the warm-up I took a couple of penalties against him, and he saved them both. So, when I stepped up to take this penalty, I’m thinking ‘he saved a couple of mine in that game a couple years ago so I’m gonna have to hit this one a bit harder’. It was so close to missing I can’t tell you.
What about the way Grobbelaar would try to put off penalty takers with his spaghetti legs, did that ever put you off at all?
I never really caught eye contact with him. So, I didn’t get involved in all that nonsense if he was doing his wobbly leg trick.
Alan Shearer and Michael Richards both named you the best penalty taker the Premier League has ever seen, so what’s that like for you?
It’s nice to get accolades like that. Obviously with penalties it’s a lot easier to quantify because you’ve got people’s records on how many penalties they’re taking, and how many they’ve scored. So, you can work out what percentage of their penalties they score and my percentage was pretty high. So, It’s almost something you don’t really need to debate because you can just look at the facts and figures.
He almost said it himself, Matt Le Tissier is undoubtedly the best penalty taker the Premier League has ever seen. However, it’s strange that when you look at the Premier League website and click on Le Tiss’ stats, it says that he hasn’t scored a penalty. Well, that clearly needs changing.
That one penalty miss – With the keeper who saved it…
This is not a conspiracy, Matt Le Tissier really did miss a penalty. Well, “It was saved to be technical” in his words.
The perfect record was spoiled by ex-Nottingham Forest goalkeeper, Mark Crossley with a deceptive save on 24 March 1993. At the time it was the best penalty taker against the best penalty stopper. Crossley had a 57% save rate when it came to the 14 penalties that he faced, and If it wasn’t for the change of the first division to the Premier League in 1992, he’d still be considered the best.
Crossley says, “you want the player to give you eye contact really, because what you’ve got to do as a goalkeeper is make him think that I’m going to go one way.
“Then if I can just faint to go one way he’ll change his mind at the last minute, but you’ve got to move your feet quickly to get across. That’s what happened. I tried to faint to go one way and go the other, but whether Matt seen me or not I don’t know.”
That’s exactly how it unfolded, from Matt’s view as he stepped up he says, “I saw him move just a little bit and I changed my mind, but he only went a little bit and then flung himself the other way. So, fair play to him it was a good save. I was just more embarrassed about missing the rebound.”
Being the only goalkeeper to stop a penalty from Matt Le Tissier is an achievement in itself and “something that I hold close to my heart because I know that can never be broken”, says Crossley.
Matt Le Tissier is a former professional football
player who played as a midfielder. He spent his entire
15-year long career at Southampton FC where
he scored 161 goals, and earned the nickname ‘Le God’.
He also won eight caps for England between ‘94 and ‘97
