Paradinha means “little stop" in Portuguese. Neymar of Santos beats the keeper with a run up and then stop and shoot. It's still not clear if this is a fair way to take a penalty kick. FIFA is reviewing this type of stop and shoot kick. What do you think?
Last month in a Brazilian professional game against São Paulo, an 18-year-old striker for Santos, whose name is Neymar, lined up to take a penalty kick. He began jogging slowly up to the ball, then suddenly accelerated his pace, then stopped abruptly, almost backpedaling. São Paulo's goalie, Rogério Ceni, jumped off his feet toward his right side, leaving Neymar, who has been dubbed by some as "the new Pelé," free to kick the ball into the opposite lower corner for an easy goal. The striker, who is being courted by a slew of European teams, high-fived a teammate and celebrated with a short samba dance as the crowd went wild and the announcers screamed: "Paradinha! Goooool!"
"He should take advantage of doing this while it's still permitted in Brazil, because when he goes to Europe he won't be able to do it," Mr. Ceni, the goalkeeper, said after the game, complaining that Neymar's paradinha was more of a "paradão," meaning "big stop."
Several days later, Fred, the star striker for the Rio de Janeiro-based club Fluminense, took the move to the extreme, stuttering on the run-up to several penalty kicks in a game against Vasco da Gama, another Rio team. On one occasion Fred came to a screeching halt before extending his foot over the ball as if to kick, sending the goalie diving to his right before Fred kicked the ball toward the other side and scored. "Only in Brazil!" tweeted Kaka, a Brazilian superstar who plays for Real Madrid. Kaka pointed out to his Twitter followers that the paradinha puts the goalie at a clear disadvantage.
