Deep into first-half injury time in Heracles’ 4-3 defeat at PSV Eindhoven in the Dutch Eredivisie on Saturday, Heracles were awarded a penalty — the third of the match.
Jizz Hornkamp placed the ball on the spot, took four strides back, and then calmly shuffled up to the ball. He kept his eyes focused on PSV goalkeeper Matej Kovar and, without breaking stride, hopped twice on his left leg, before calmly sending Kovar the wrong way.
Judging the moment perfectly, Hornkamp said to ESPN NL afterwards, “I’ve done this a few times in training. Because I delay my hop so late, the keeper probably thinks I’m going to shoot, so he dives very early, which means you don’t even have to shoot hard, and just calmly pass it into the other corner.”
The rules of football state that a player can’t feint when taking a spot kick — and the PSV players protested to the referee after the goal was awarded — but Hornkamp has kept a close eye on that and perfected his technique.
“I practiced this a lot in training, and at some point you’re just waiting for a penalty in a match,” he said. “And now I thought: now I can actually pull it off.”
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The goal was the talk of both changing rooms. PSV’s backup goalkeeper Nick Olij came up to Hornkamp at halftime and asked what he was doing. Hornkamp answered: “I said: Just a little hop and … done,” as he mimed the action.
He was also seen talking USMNT striker Ricardo Pepi through the penalty.
So was this a one-off? Or will we see the “Hornkamp hop” again?
“We’ll have to see,” the striker added.
ESPN NL analyst Marciano Vink commented: “I’ve never seen this before. He limps. You have to have a lot of confidence to pull this off.”
“We’ve had the ‘hop,’ we’ve seen [Bilal] Ould-Chikh without a run-up, and now we have the limp.”
Was it legal?
The IFAB law for possible illegal feinting at a penalty kick is clear, but allows for a level of interpretation by the match referee.
Legal feinting
– During the run-up: Players can stop, stutter, pause, or make deceptive movements as long as they maintain forward momentum towards the ball.
– Example: A “step-and-stop” or “stutter-step” in the approach is permitted.
Illegal feinting
– After the run-up: Once the player has completed their run-up (the kick and last step are in motion), they cannot feint to kick the ball.
– Consequence: An indirect free kick for the opposing team and a caution (yellow card) for the kicker, even if a goal is scored.
Verdict: In this situation, there is constant forward movement towards the ball, albeit negligible, so the kick is a good one.
For the penalty taker to be penalized, the referee would be looking for them to make a definitive pause in their movement at the final action, before restarting his action to play the ball forward.
Very rarely do you see a penalty taker penalized for this offence. — Andy Davies, former Select Group referee.