Mind over Kick

Mind Over Body has an interesting article today about how it's all in the mind - when making penalty kicks ...

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Straits Times, Mind Over Body, Wed Feb 7, 2007
Penalty success: It's all in the mind

When a football match is tied, a penalty shoot out decides the winner. But it's not skilful feet that score, it's the controlled mind. Elaine Young reports

The stadium's 55,000 pairs of eyes are on one man. Some are jeering, some willing him to score. He takes a run-up to the ball, kicks and then, seconds later, cheers, screams and clapping erupt from every red-clothed body round the pitch. Singapore was through to the final of the Asean Football Championship.
The man was Malaysian footballer Khyril Muhymeen, taking the last penalty kick in a penalty shoot-out which Singapore goalkeeper Lionel Lewis stopped in his studded tracks.
The reason he failed where the nine other players succeeded has little to do with ability and everything to do with pressure, say psychologists.
The best players in the world can miss a penalty kick, even when every fan at home or in the stadium will claim it was 'a sitter'.
A study published in the Journal Of Sports Sciences on Jan 15 claims that stress and anxiety may be important factors to explain why a player will score or not.
And those factors will affect the outcome regardless of the hours spent in training.
The study, entitled 'Kicks from the penalty mark in soccer: the roles of stress, skill and fatigue for kick outcomes', analysed 41 shoot-outs - comprising 409 penalty kicks - from international football games between 1976 and 2004.
They evaluated the chance of success by studying the effects of the players' position (forward, midfielder or defender) and the amount of time the players were on the pitch before the shoot-out. They also studied the players' ages as an influencing factor.
The biggest factor to affect the outcome, however, was the order of the shot, says the report. For the first kick, when the pressure is relatively low, an average of 86.7 per cent of kicks were successful. Then, as the pressure mounts, the goals decrease: the second penalty shooter achieves 81.7 per cent of attempts, third shooter manages 79.3, fourth 72.5 and the fifth and final shooter 80 per cent.
The success rates could be influenced by coaches picking their best players to shoot at certain times, said one of the researchers, but it cannot account for all the difference.
At a September 2006 conference, Fifa president Sepp Blatter said that penalty shoot-outs may be phased out by the next World Cup: 'When it comes to the World Cup final, it is passion, and when it goes to extra time it is a drama. But when it comes to penalty kicks, it is a tragedy... Football is a team sport and penalties are not for a team, it is the individual.'
Singapore coach Raddy Avramovic does not agree with that sentiment. He told Mind Your Body that it's always about teamwork. He said the penalty taker knows the rest of the team are behind him, trust him and that is why he is chosen to take the shot at goal.
Dr Adrian Wang, consultant psychiatrist at the Gleneagles Medical Centre, said: 'It's how one perceives the situation. If you can channel all that pressure - from the fans, your team-mates, the coach, and yourself - into positive self-belief and visualise success, you've got half the job done. But if you're nervous and start doubting and over-analysing things, you'll mess up your natural rhythm - and the kick too.
'Mental rehearsal, visual imagery, positive self-talk are important tools necessary to rise to the challenge of performing at the highest level. That means practising. Again and again. Including those darn penalty kicks, so that they become second nature, even with 55,000 fans yelling at you.'
Coach Avramovic said the team have been focusing on penalties. He advises them to concentrate, count to three and go. Not to take the kick when the referee signals them to, but when they are mentally ready to.
But he said not all players can handle the pressure. 'It depends on your personality. It takes mental toughness not to be affected by the surroundings, and do your job.'
The first penalty shooter in the Malaysia-
Singapore game was Indra Sahdan Daud, and he did his job by sinking the ball into the back of the net. Said the Singapore striker: 'The pressure was not that bad as I had got used to it in training.'
He and the rest of the team would go through the sequence of a penalty kick from the walk-up to the penalty spot, taking the moment to compose oneself and finally the kick itself.
Said Indra Sahdan: 'It was the same on the day, except for the crowd. I just block out all the noise and concentrate on the spot I'm aiming for in the goal.'
You would have thought that whatever pressure the players may have, it is equal for the goalkeeper who is trying to prevent the other team from scoring their penalty shots, but that isn't what Singapore goalkeeper Lionel Lewis feels.
Lewis said he studies the opponents before a match and how they are likely to kick the ball, but thinks the players taking the penalty have far more pressure than he does.
He added it does not matter if he is standing in goal in Singapore or overseas as he - like his team-mate - blocks out the noise and surroundings. He said: 'I just focus on the ball.'
The research team behind the study recommends rehearsals to overcome the pressure.
They discovered that players who pause for less than half a second before beginning their run-up succeed only 63 per cent of the time. Those who ready themselves longer succeed 81 per cent.
This suggests that a routine, or 'self-talk' as Dr Wang puts it, helps calm the nerves and puts them in control of the situation.
Mr Lee Taylor, managing director of ESPZEN, the largest amateur football league in Singapore, said: 'Penalties add to the spice of football - a nice way to win, but a bad way to lose.'

E-mail: elainey@sph.com.sg