How to Win a World Cup Match on Penalty Kicks: Scientific Study

by Jordan Yerman | June 25, 2010 at 08:03 am

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Dutch University Studies Penalty Shootouts

As the 2010 World Cup moves into the knockout stage, draws are no longer an option. There must be a winner in each match. So, when injury time has run out and the score is tied, the next step is extra time, and then penalty kicks. Brazil won the 1994 World cup in a shootout, as did the American women's team in the same year.

The 2006 World Cup final was also decided by shootout, with Italy beating France. We'll let historians argue over how definitive a shooutout victory is, while we look at the shootout itself. Penalty kicks may be only slightly better than drawing lots, but fans, coaches, managers, and players all seek a way to make the penalty shootout an issue of skill, and not luck.

Dr. Gert-Jan Pepping, a sport scientist (nice!) at University of Groningen in northern Netherlands, believes he has the secret to penalty-kick victory locked down.

Penalty Kicks: Celebration Time

Pepping's secret: be happy. Not just in general, but be demonstrably happy on the pitch. Celebrate the first penalty-kick goal by celebrating wildly. This propagates positive vibes, and encourages one's own teammates to score while demoralizing the goalie.

Pepping and his research group (Moll, Jordet, & Pepping, 2010) studied a large number of penalty shootouts during important soccer matches, but only as long as the score in the shootout was still equal. After every shot at goal, the player was assessed on the degree to which he expressed happiness and pride after scoring. This revealed that the players who expressed this clearly, for example by throwing their arms up into the air, usually belonged to the winning team.

Or perhaps they're happy because they're winning, and not the other way around. Correlation, sure. Causation? Maybe not. This does not take into account the other factor in a penalty shootout: the goalie.

Goalie Influence on Penalty Kicks

While a penalty kick is a goalie's worst nightmare (unless your jersey says "Green"), a 2007 study showed that the keeper can subtly influence how the shooter shoots, even though the goalie only stops around one in five shots.

According to the study, when the goalie stood more to one side of the net, even if it was only a difference of 10cm, the shooter would favor the emptier half of the goal area- this isn't that surprising, actually.

In an article published in the March issue of Psychological Science, Professors Rich Masters, John van der Kamp and Robin Jackson of the Institute of Human Performance at the University of Hong Kong found that penalty takers are more likely to direct the football to the side with more space.

The question is—does your overt happiness outweigh the keeper's ability to read your mind? What if your happiness is one of the indicators that actually makes it easier for him? Quite the conundrum, isn't it?