I Can Never Take A Penalty Like Bruno Fernandes – Giggs

Manchester United legend, Ryan Giggs has come out to day he respects players like Paul Pogba and Bruno Fernandes when it comes to taking penalties.

Giggs recently revealed that he found it hard to read the goalkeeper’s reactions during spot kicks like these players when he still played football.

According to him, Eden Hazard and Pogba are very amazing when they go up slowly before shooting and Bruno Fernandes is equally dangerous with his little hop before striking the ball and scoring.

He added that his own philosophy was putting it low into the corner with the certainty that the goalie cannot catch it if he strikes the ball well.

His words, “My technique with penalty taking was – you know you see players looking at the goalkeeper?”

“Eden Hazard – I mean he’s amazing, he just goes up so slowly, and even Bruno Fernandes now with a little hop.

“I could never do that. My philosophy was: ‘I’m putting it low into the corner – even if the goalkeeper goes the right way, he’s not gonna save it if I execute it right’. That was my philosophy, so it doesn’t matter if he went the right way or not. If I do low, side-netting, he shouldn’t be able to save it.

“That was my philosophy, rather than looking at the goalkeeper, trying to play mind games and having the confidence which Hazard and Bruno Fernandes [have]. Pogba did for a while that slow run up. I could never do that.”

On scoring a PK in Moscow, “Because I’d come on as sub, I think beforehand they’d already done the list of penalty takers, and we had some good penalty takers,” he recalled. “We had [Carlos] Tevez, Cristiano – who missed, we had Michael Carrick, Owen Hargreaves – obviously with his German background at Bayern he was never going to miss.

“So we had some really good penalty takers before as well. Some penalty takers who would be penalty takers in open play.

“Doubts over where to place the penalty? No, and that was the preparation during the week with Carlos Queiroz the coach.

“We’d practiced, tried to create a realistic atmosphere, which of course is nearly impossible. But [we did] the walk up from the centre-circle, place it, take it seriously, blow the whistle.

“What I’d done that week was I’d took about 15 penalties and scored 14, and the one that I’d missed hit the post – but every one was the same side. So I had the technique already in my head where I was gonna put it, it was just about me holding my nerve.”