Darwin Nunez: Liverpool man is one of football's coolest penalty takers | OneFootball

Darwin Nunez will make the move from Benfica to Liverpool this summer, subject to a successful work-permit.

The Uruguayan striker has agreed to make the €100m switch to the Premier League giants.

He told Liverpool’s official website: “I’m really happy and delighted to be here at Liverpool. It’s a massive club. I’d like to thank my partner and my parents and my son, who is a real source of pride for me.

“They’ve been really important to me in the stages in my career. I’m really proud of them, and for the work we do, me and my partner, as a team and I’m grateful to her that I’m here.

“It’s a pleasure to be here in Liverpool and I’m very happy to be a part of this great club.”

Nunez made a name for himself in the 2021/22 season, where he scored 34 times in 41 games for Benfica.

Two of his goals came against Liverpool in their Champions League quarter-final clash.

Nunez is an extremely good penalty taker.

He has taken 11 penalties in his professional career, per Transfermarkt. He’s yet to miss one yet.

Nunez has a very cool penalty technique. Since joining Benfica, Nunez has adopted a style where he nonchalantly makes his way to the ball and produces a little skip before getting to the ball.

He watches the goalkeeper the whole way before side-footing the ball at goal.

Twitter user @CF_Compss has compiled all of his penalties into one video and you can view them below…

The goalkeeper has gone the wrong way in almost every one of the penalties Nunez has taken.

He’s so calm and collected from the spot that he may well replace Mohamed Salah as Liverpool’s main penalty taker.

Salah has a very different technique to Nunez.

The Egyptian usually sprints to the ball and hammers the ball at goal with ferocity. Unlike Nunez, he tends to focus on the ball rather than the goalkeeper during his run-up.

Salah is a great penalty taker but his record isn’t as good as Nunez’s. He has taken 32 penalties in his career and missed five times, including twice for Liverpool in the 2021/22 season.

We could see Nunez take the lion’s share of spot-kicks for Liverpool going forward.

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