Via Gabriel:
"Behavior in many complex and seemingly intractable strategic settings can be understood more clearly by working out what each party in the game will choose to do if they realize that the other parties will be solving the same problem. This insight has helped us understand behavior as diverse as military conflicts, price setting by competing firms and penalty kicking in soccer."
It isn't new. This approach underlay the Cournot equilibrium nearly two centuries ago and the Edgeworth disequilibria long before the extensions that developed with John Nash et al.
The important thing in applying the technique to penalty kicks in soccer is the collection of lots of data and analyzing the snot out of it. A refined analysis generally leads to the use of optimally proportioned mixed strategies. Some of the research in these areas is intriguing, even fun.
I find it amusing and amazing that I, a non-mathematical, intuitive game-theorist economist, strongly and confidently agree with this quotation but there are some in this survey who don't.