00:00As the Argentine player lined up his penalty, the German goalkeeper did something very strange.
00:05He reached down into his sock and pulled out a piece of paper. He stood there for a moment,
00:10studying it, and then put it back into his sock. The Argentinians thought it was weird,
00:14but they continued on and took their shot, which the keeper seemed to save with ease.
00:19Argentina were confused. The World Cup quarterfinal had come down to a penalty shootout,
00:24and the German keeper, Jens Lehmann, had now correctly picked which direction to dive twice
00:30in a row, each time looking at the piece of paper before the shot. The Argentinians talked between
00:35themselves and they started to wonder what on earth could be written on that piece of paper.
00:40The next Argentinian lined up for their third penalty shot. Lehmann pulled out the piece of paper,
00:45studied it, and then put it away in his sock again. He didn't save it this time, but once again,
00:49he'd picked the correct direction to dive. And as Esteban Cambiasso lined up to take Argentina's
00:55fourth penalty, Lehmann once again stared at the piece of paper. People who watched the match at
01:00the time had theories about what was written on the paper. Some people thought that it must have
01:05some kind of statistical analysis of each player's penalty habits. Others thought the paper was empty,
01:10and Lehmann was just playing mind games. But we actually know what was written on that paper,
01:14because after this game, Lehmann's Cheat Sheet, as it became known, was auctioned off for a
01:19children's charity. And when it was purchased for one million euros, it was then donated to a German
01:25museum. And on that paper was written a prediction for Cruz, Ayala, and Rodriguez.
01:35Oh, he's found the corner with a really well-struck penalty. But Cambiasso wasn't on the list. It wasn't
01:41one of Argentina's typical penalty shooters. So the predictions, which had been given to Lehmann by
01:46Germany's coaching staff after sifting through a database of 13,000 penalty kicks, didn't have
01:52Cambiasso's name on it. Of course, Lehmann knew this. But he also knew that the very act of him
01:57looking at the paper and then predicting the Argentinian's shots was starting to unnerve them.
02:02So, once again, he studied the paper, put it away, and then...
02:08Germany made it through to the semifinals.
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