When Cardiff Met goalkeeper Will Fuller did a Tim Krul
Will Fuller saved a number of penalties. (Image: Matthew Lofthouse)
Norwich City goalkeeper Tim Krul has been in the headlines this week for his penalty heroics in the FA Cup.
The Dutch stopper – with the help of information stuck to his water bottle – saved two Tottenham Hotspur spot-kicks to send the Canaries, who currently sit bottom of the Premier League, through to the quarter-finals of the competition.
The information, which included statistics of which way Spurs players opted to shoot in their previous penalty attempts, helped Krul to deny youngster Troy Parrot and January signing Gedson Fernandes’ efforts.
But this isn’t the first time this trick has been used to good effect.
Ironically, it was a former Ipswich Town player and boyhood Tractor Boys fan who took advantage of the the opportunity presented to him.
Cardiff Metropolitan’s Will Fuller had information on Bala Town’s penalty takers written on his water bottle for last season’s Europa League playoff final at Maes Tegid.
The stopper, who is a Masters graduate in Sports Psychology, denied Nathan Burke, Chris Venables and Mike Hayes as the Archers qualified for European football for the first time.
“I prepared the water bottle before the game, with the tape around it and marker pen on it of what to do for each player – I just got it right in the moment,” he said to The Sun in May 2019.
“I’d been saving them up. I don’t think I’d saved one in about five years, but I did it when it mattered most.”
That he certainly did. Reaching the preliminary round of Europa League qualifying earned the club £183,000, a sum which will allow them to continually improve in the coming years.
Fuller made clear that he could not have pulled off his heroics without the help of his fellow students at the university.
“We’re lucky to have a sports performance analysis course at University with a team who work with us week in week out putting videos together of the opposition,” he said.
“They’d clipped up all their penalties from the season, so I had a bit of an idea of where to go.”
(Featured Image: Matthew Lofthouse)
