What's the best way to train accuracy on penalty kicks?

What really works is repeating the same penalties in the same spot, always, until the movement becomes automatic. There's no point blasting 100 random balls from different angles - what you need is repetitive technique. Pick a corner (bottom right, bottom left, top center, whatever you want), put a small target in there and do 20-30 shots in a row at the same spot. Muscle memory builds that way, not through variety.

What people underestimate is training when you're tired. You take a penalty in the 90th minute when your legs are burning and your head is foggy. So after a running session or intense drills, when your legs feel heavy, do your penalty training. That way you get your body used to shooting accurately even when it's not feeling good, and that's the real challenge.

Another practical thing: change the goalkeeper or at least the view. When you always train alone against an empty goal, your body relaxes. If there's someone watching you, even if they're standing still, the nerves go up and your shot changes. Try shooting with people around, with distractions, because that way the mechanics stay the same even under pressure. And obviously film the videos - review your shots to see if your approach is consistent or if it changes every time.

To develop precision in penalty kicks, what really changes things is training under psychological pressure, not just shooting relaxed balls. Anyone can stand there and score when nobody's watching, but a real penalty is total stress. Try to create scenarios where you feel the weight of the decision: maybe set it up with yourself that you need to make 5 penalties in a row without missing, and if you miss one you start over from zero. Or invite someone to watch you, get them to comment on your shots. The tension in your body is what you need to learn to manage, because that's what you'll find in a match.

Technically, repeating the movement is fundamental, I agree with whoever said that before. But give it a different angle: it's not enough to repeat mechanically in the same spot. Vary the angles slightly within the penalty area, change the time of day if you can (sun, shadows), modify the surface if possible. Your body needs to recognize the essential movement even when the details around it change, not just when everything is identical.

And then there's the mental side, which is the most underrated. Before every shot, always the same ritual: how many steps back, when to breathe, where you're aiming. I remember my cousin who had a total nightmare with penalties until he figured out he needed a fixed routine. After six months he'd basically become unstoppable, not from shooting 1000 balls, but from becoming calm. That calm is the real training.

In my opinion, repetition and pressure are both important, but there's a missing piece: you also need to vary the context during training, because in a real match you never know exactly how you'll feel emotionally or what the perfect angle will be. I've seen people shoot perfectly in training always the same way, then in a game with 10,000 people screaming and exhaustion weighing on them, they mess up badly because their body doesn't recognize the situation.

In my view, the ideal is to do sessions where you repeat the same movement until it becomes solid, but mixing in different situations: sometimes with simulated pressure, sometimes after physical drills that tire you out, sometimes from slightly different angles. That way when the real moment comes, your body has already faced (more or less) everything that can happen.