Cup shoot-out hero Freddie happy to take pens as
WILLIAM HILL SCOTTISH CUP
FOR a goalkeeper who hates practising penalties in training, Freddie Woodman is seriously good at them. The Aberdeen shot-stopper guessed correctly three times in his side’s shoot-out win at Kilmarnock in Tuesday night’s Scottish Cup quarter-final replay. Nobody should have been too surprised.
When the Englishman won the 2014 European Under-17 Championship, he saved a penalty in the final against Holland. Three years later, when the England Under-20 side won the World Cup at their age level, he saved a penalty against Venezuela in that final.
Woodman is still a Newcastle United player and a few years ago he was a shoot-out hero against Sunderland in a youth game which in that neck of the woods is just about as good as it gets.
“The shoot-outs seem to follow me wherever I go,” said Woodman. “I’m not even sure how many I’ve won now but it’s a few. It’s a good record to have, to be honest. I’m happy with that and hopefully it will stick with me throughout my career.
“I was positive we would win Tuesday’s game in normal time. As soon as the whistle went at the end of extra-time, my mind went straight on the penalties.
“I was obviously confident going into it and our boys did well to score their penalties and they helped me out, and we won the shoot-out.
“We don’t practise them. If anything we goalies hate them. In training, the players always want to practise them and it does my head in to be honest with you. It’s just diving around all the time.
“There is no practise as such, but I do study penalties. I’ve guessed at them, tried everything really, and sometimes you are right and other times you are wrong. Tuesday night was a night I got right.”
WOODMAN is a talented goalie – voted the best in the Under-20 World Cup – and Aberdeen did well to get him on loan.
At 21 he still has many years ahead of him before he reaches the peak age for his position, but given the ability he clearly possesses it does seem odd to see him being loaned out here, there and everywhere when he’s more than good enough to have played for his parent club. But Woodman is at Pittodrie until the end of this season and he would love to mark his time in Scotland with a medal.
He said: “It would mean everything to me if we were to get to the cup final. I have played in a few finals now and even before I joined Aberdeen I would say that football is about winning trophies. When you get to the end of your career you want medals and something to show off.
“So if we can get past Motherwell, it would give me that opportunity to win a cup. We’ve got Dundee on Saturday, which is a big game for us, then the international break, and after that we will start looking at the semi.
“Hopefully, we can get a bit of momentum. A win can lift any side and I think at the end you could see what winning meant to the fan. They were buzzing, as were we, it was a great night and let’s hope we can kick on in the league.”
Aberdeen will face Motherwell on April 14 without Kenny McLean, Shay Logan and Grae- me Shinnie who are suspended. All three would have started so it’s a problem Derek McInnes could do without.
Woodman admitted: “They are big players for us. All three are vital. But we have a good squad, some brilliant players, and I picked up on that the moment I started training with them. There is top quality players at the club so I honestly don’t think it will be a problem with the lads who will come into the team. And hopefully we can get to a final for the three lads that are missing.”