"You mention that your team needs to have protocol for everything, but is it possible at all to do so? Life is full of uncertainties. Well, let's take the example that you quoted. Do you need a protocol for the penalty kick ?" The reporter asked.
"Absolutely, absolutely," His Highness replied, "Our players have to specify which side they will choose to kick the ball..."
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For those who have some elementary knowledge on strategy or game theory, you may immediately recognize this plan of the King is nothing more or less than absurd. The best result of handling a penalty kicking is to use the so-called "mixed strategy" - in short, you randomly select which side to kick. And, same for the goal-keeper, who should randomly select which side to dive.
In fact, even if the kicker has a better technique of shooting one side than the other, he should still do it at random - although not with a 50-50 probability in picking right or left (but should also depend on how good the goalkeeper is at diving to each side).
The calculation has been described in detail by Oskar Morgenstern and John von Neumann.
If you are obsessed with numbers, you may like to read this:
http://www2.owen.vanderbilt.edu/mike.shor/courses/game-theory/docs/lecture05/MixedSoccer.html
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