I've heard a couple of times now of advice being given to goalkeepers about the philosphy of goalkeepers being taught to just blatently without any clue prior to a penalty being taken to dive left or right and dive in a forward angled motion.

This kind of irks me because I am noticing we are now seeing that it is accepted for keepers to dive completely in the wrong direction of the ball being kicked which makes them look rather stupid and clueless.

I would like to know why keepers are being taught this practice.

From a mathematical point of view there are 3 options for a penalty taker. Left, Right and straight down the middle. Which means that if you divide the goals into 3 sections they represent a 33.3% chance a diving keeper will get it right and 66.6% he will choose wrongly. In my mind 33.3% is not good odds.

That is left = 33.3% of the option. Right = 33.3% of the option and striking down the middle being the other 33.3%.

Why on earth would a keeper be taught that 33.3% is good odds that he will stop the ball?

Now i've never been a keeper but a striker all my career and one thing that separated good keepers from bad was a good keeper could ascertain the direction of the ball once it left the boot very quickly and throw his body in that direction which increased his chances mathematically from 33.3% to upwards of 66.6% - 100% chance of stopping the ball.

Anyone care to enlighten me why keepers are taught to accept 33.3% odds is acceptable nowdays...