Willian scores 2 comfortable PK points, giving the team 3 points
Brazilian veteran striker Willian successfully scored both penalty kicks, giving his team Fulham three points.
On the 28th (Korean time), Fulham won 3-2 over Wolverhampton Wanderers in the 13th round of the 2023-2024 English Premier League (EPL) at Craven Cottage in London, England.
According to sports statistics company OPTA, the average age of Fulham’s starting lineup was 30 years and 36 days, making it the oldest starting lineup among EPL teams this season. It was also the oldest lineup not only this season but in recent years. To find a team with a higher average age than the Fulham starting lineup on this day, you had to go back to September 2014 (Hull City, 30 years, 193 days).
There wasn’t a single player born in the 2000s that can be easily seen these days. Center back Calvin Bassey, born on December 31, 1999, was the youngest. On the other hand, almost half, or five, of the players were in their 30s. One of them, Willian, was 35 years old, the oldest player after defender Tim Lim, 36. Willian contributed to the team’s victory that day with a calmness commensurate with his accumulated experience.
The game was played in such a way that if Fulham scored first, Wolverhampton would chase, and the three goals that came after Alex Iwobi’s opener in the 7th minute of the first half and Matheus Cunha’s equalizer in the 22nd minute of the first half were all penalty kicks. In the 14th minute of the second half, Fulham was awarded a penalty kick first, and Willian took the kicker. Willian stole the timing by making a slight pause just before shooting, and then aimed to the right, in the opposite direction from the goalkeeper, and hit the net. 토토사이트랭크
In the 30th minute of the second half, Wolverhampton striker Hwang Hee-chan scored a penalty kick himself. The Fulham player who gave up the foul was Lim. The team could have been shaken by a foul by Lim, the most experienced defender, but Willian remained calm until the end. In the 45th minute of the second half, Fulham had another opportunity to take a penalty kick. The kicker was, of course, Willian. This time he attempted a powerful shot to the left side of the goal. Goalkeeper Jose Sa was unable to block Willian’s shot despite reading the direction. Willian’s goal became the winning goal.
The basis for calmness was experience and skill. Willian is a player who is confident in his penalty kicks. According to the British media ‘BBC’, he attempted a total of 7 penalty kicks in the EPL and succeeded in all of them. Among players with a 100% penalty kick success rate in the EPL, the only players with more attempts than Willian are Yaya Toure (11), Dimitar Berbatov (9), and Ruben Neves (8).
Willian’s two skillful penalty kicks gave Fulham three valuable points. This is their first win in 5 games since the 8th round match against Sheffield United. Through this, they widened the gap with the relegation zone and rose to 14th place.