Penalties

[caja-dglh]

Again, like TAB's point above about penalties in general being a solution to tactical fouling to stop attack, the stutter step is a development from attackers intended to expose a goalkeeper cheating by moving fractionally early. Moving early gives goalies a clear and illegal advantage over what they should have. Maybe it is no longer needed with VAR, though. It sure was previously, though.

I am fascinated by the idea that a keeper has a clear advantage by moving early. It is only true for a subset of events. I must be misunderstanding exactly what we are talking about here - moving off their line, or lateral?

[ursus arctos]

The traditional cheat has been to advance in both directions.

I always felt that advancing towards the shooter, thus altering the angles in one's favour, provided the greater relative benefit (though it was also more likely to be whistled).

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

See dida in the 2003 cl final and dudek in 2005. Moving early enables you to get closer to the corner. Which helps if you guess right, but nowadays will just let the taker roll it slowly down the middle