P

A penalty where you chip the ball softly down the middle, betting the keeper will dive to one side. Named after Antonín Panenka, who won the 1976 European Championship final with exactly this trick. You need serious nerve to try it - get it right and you look ice cold, get it wrong and you look like an idiot who cost your team the game.

Putting almost everyone behind the ball and making the defence impossible to break down. José Mourinho made the phrase famous, though he was criticizing opponents at the time. It means sitting deep in two compact lines, not pressing much, and waiting to counter. Purists hate it, but it works against better teams. You need players who can concentrate and hold their positions for 90 minutes.

A visual showing a team's passing patterns - where players receive the ball and who they pass to. You can see the structure of play: who's the hub, which partnerships connect most, where the team builds. Average position maps show where players spent their time, while pass networks show the connections. Analysts use them to understand how teams function.

A free shot from 12 yards out, given when someone fouls inside the box. Just the taker and the keeper until the ball is struck. Conversion rate sits around 75-80% in professional football, which makes missing feel worse than it should. The mind games between taker and keeper are intense, and shootouts to decide knockout games produce some of football's most memorable agony.

An insult for a player whose goal stats are padded by penalties. Used to dismiss achievements by arguing they couldn't score as many from open play. Common in online debates comparing strikers, though it's often unfair to designated penalty takers who didn't choose to be handed spot kicks. Bruno Fernandes at United is a frequent target.