Why do English players fail in soccer penalty shootouts? A study of team status, self-regulation, and choking under pressure

Abstract

We examine why players from some nations seem to always choke in major international soccer penalty shootouts. Based on a model on choking under pressure as a type of selfdefeating behaviour (Baumeister, 1997), we hypothesised that highly favourable public appraisals of a team would be linked to displays of escapist self-regulation strategies and inferior performance. We selected the 8 most merited European teams, obtained videos from penalty shootouts in two major international tournaments (World Cup and European Championships) and analyzed all 200 shots taken by players representing these teams.The results gave significant relationships between team status, self-regulation strategies and performance. Players from teams that, at the time of the penalty shootout, either had many international club titles or featured many internationally decorated players, spent less time preparing their shots and were less successful from the penalty mark than players on teams with lower public status. England and Spain are used to illustrate these effects, as the data suggests that players from both these countries may have underperformed in previous international soccer tournaments because of high public status and misguided self-regulation strategies.

Stress, Coping, and Emotions on the World Stage: The Experience of Participating in a Major Soccer Tournament Penalty Shootout

“…However, as opposed to in Nicholls and colleagues' studies of rugby and golf players (e.g., Nicholls, 2007;Nicholls, Holt, Polman, & James, 2005;Nicholls et al, 2009), the avoidance strategy blocking was less frequently reported by the participants in our study. This relative lack of explicit references to avoidance coping is also interesting in the light that avoidance based strategies have been identified in observation studies on performers in penalty shootouts as a common response to particularly high pressure (Jordet & Hartman, 2008;Jordet, 2009a;2009b) and as a negative correlate to performance at the penalty mark (Jordet et al, 2009). Having said this, there was still evidence of avoidance coping in this study.…”

“…It was believed that qualitative interviews of these players would add to our knowledge about the ways in which elite athletes experience stressors, coping, and emotions during a high-pressure competitive event -the major tournament soccer penalty shootout. This could also supplement existing video based knowledge about performing under the severe pressure that this event can trigger (e.g., Jordet, 2009a;2009b;Jordet & Hartman, 2008;Jordet et al, 2009). …”

“…These mechanisms have been demonstrated in major soccer penalty shootouts using video observation methods. Under high levels of ego threat, players exhibited more avoidance based coping than under lower levels of threat (Jordet & Hartman, 2008;Jordet, 2009a;Jordet, 2009b). This was exhibited by players who turned away from the goalkeeper (seemingly attempting to not looking at the stressful information) and in players who rushed their shots (seemingly attempting to quickly get the shot over with).…”

“…The way that this study potentially may add to the knowledge we already have on stress, coping, and emotions, is primarily that it addresses elite professional athletes' experiences of one specific stressful situation. Moreover, given that athletes' specific behaviors in this particular situation has recently been the object of a series of video observation studies (e.g., Jordet, 2009a;2009b;Jordet & Hartman, 2008;Jordet et al, 2009), it may be possible to compare the phenomenological experiences captured in the present study with the typical behaviors captured in these other studies. By isolating one narrow contextual feature in this way, one might get a reasonably clear image of the processes of interest related to elite athletes' stress, coping, and emotions when they compete at the highest possible level in their sport.…”

Inside the brain of an elite athlete: the neural processes that support high achievement in sports

“…"Choking" under pressure may be defined as unexpectedly impaired performance during competition 140,141 . One possible explanation for choking relates to the Fitts pattern in skill development 42 .…”