Best Penalty Takers in Turkish Super League since 2001–2002 Season
Who are the best Turkish Super League penalty takers in Turkish Super League from 2001–02 to 2021–22 season is analyzed. In addition to those who are able to handle with the pressure, who weren’t as good as others at converting from the penalty spot as well are looked at.
The raw data is extracted from FBref.com by using worldfootballR package in R. The seasons avaliable for Turkish Super League in FBref.com starts from 2001–02 and 2022–23 season is excluded since it is not finalized yet.
When the total number of penatlty attempts and penaty goals are analyzed it, is seen that after 2010–2011 season, there is a consistent increase. This trend can be explained by strictly enforced rules and introduction of video-assistant referee(VAR) in the recent years, allows on-field referees to consult replays of actions.
To evaluate players successfull and not succesfull at converting the penalty kick to a goal, a condition on the number of penalty attempts are applied. Only players with at least 10 penalty attempts are considered.
There are only 5 players who attempted at least 10 penalties and had 100% conversion rate as seen in Table 1. Alexandru Maxim who played for Gaziantep FK scored 19 penalty goals from 19 attempts.
The total number of penalties made are analyzed besides success rate. Unsurprisingly, Burak Yılmaz of the best forwards in Turkish Super League (also won a 2020–21 Ligue 1 title with Lille) is the player with the most penalty goals (30) having also taken the most (33) as seen in Figure 2.
There are also players who are good at scoring but didn’t have a chance to socre from penalty kicks. Veysel Cihan and Mustafa Pektemek who both played for several clubs in Turkish Super League are the ones who score most Turkish Super League goals without a single one being a penalty (68 goals) as seen in Table 3.
Two players have scored a penalty for as many as five different clubs. Sinan Kaloğlu (Altay, Diyarbakırspor, Manisaspor, Bursaspor, Elazığspor) and Necati Ateş (Antalyaspor,Eskişehispor, Galatasaray, İstanbul BB, Adanaspor) scored 8 and 22 goals respectively as seen in Figure 3. Both those players can be considered as elite Turkish goalscorer.
Who is the Worst Turkish Super League Penalty Taker?
Of the players who have taken at least 10 penalties in Turkish Super League from 2001–02 to 2021–22 Muhammet Demir has the worst success rate from the penalty spot, scoring just 5 of his 11 penalties.
Hugo Rodellaga and Bafétimbi Gomis has also success rate value lower than 70% as can be seen in Table 4. They both did quite good job in Turkish Super League but weren’t good at the penalty kick spot. Gomis also ranked as the top scorer of the league after scoring 29 goals in 33 matches in 2017–18 season.
