When I was a young lad my youth soccer team had a throw-in routine that we labelled “Pikachu”, much to the embarrassment of our coach. The player taking the throw-in would gleefully scream out the play over and over, and we’d get giddy as all hell at the opportunity to execute. Standing in a well-organized line four or five deep, the players towards the front would peel off laterally while the player at the very back of the queue would steam forward to collect the throw-in.
It was incredibly stupid and had more to do with with our appreciation of how "Pikachu” sounded acoustically than anything else. The other team surely thought something much more menacing was coming at them, but it usually amounted to nothing more than a foul throw.
Poland’s Puszcza Niepolomice have continued that great tradition of overblown strategy all the way up to the professional level. Here’s a free kick routine in an extremely dangerous position, but they’ve invoked their own version of "Pikachu" with an equally worthless result.
Rzut wolny Puszczy Niepołomice... #JanuszeStałychFragmentów pic.twitter.com/GTMnRZbL36
— Tomek S (@TomekSaxx) November 29, 2016
Well done. Niepolomice lost the match 2-0, proving that football matches are decided on the pitch and not on the chalkboard.
(H/T: Who Ate All The Pies)
