Journal of Sports Sciences, January 15th 2007; 25(2): 121 129

Kicks from the penalty mark in soccer: The roles of stress, skill, and fatigue for kick outcomes

GEIR JORDET, ESTHER HARTMAN, CHRIS VISSCHER, & KOEN A. P. M. LEMMINK

Centre for Human Movement Sciences, University of Groningen, University Medical Center, Groningen, The Netherlands (Accepted 6 February 2006)

Abstract The soccer penalty shootout in the knock-out phase of major international tournaments is one of the most dramatic events in international soccer. The outcome of these kicks is typically attributed to factors such as psychology (e.g. coping with stress), skill (e.g. kicking technique), physiology (e.g. overcoming the fatigue of 120 min play), and chance (e.g. in what direction the goalkeeper moves). The purpose of this study was to use internet game record data to estimate the relative importance of these performance components for the outcome of penalty kicks in international matches. Data were collected from soccer statistics internet sites on all 41 penalty shootouts and 409 kicks taken in the World Cup, European Championships, and Copa America between 1976 and 2004. The results showed that the importance of the kicks (indicative of stress) was negatively related to the outcomes of the kicks, whereas skill and fatigue were less, or not, related to outcome. It was concluded that psychological components are most inuential for the outcome of penalty kicks. We recommend that practitioners work with players to reduce the perceived importance of each kick.

Keywords: Soccer, penalty shootout, stress, skill, fatigue

Introduction I dont know whether mental strength helps you score a penalty or even whether practicing does, but you have to admire teams who manage to hold their nerve more often than not in something they call a lottery. It is not such a lottery for them. (Stuart Pearce, 2000, p. 8) Kicks from the penalty mark (the ofcial term for the penalty shootout; FIFA, 2004) in the knock-out phase of major international tournaments produce some of the most dramatic events in international soccer. For example, the nals of the most prestigious international tournaments (i.e. World Cup, European Championships, and Copa America for national teams, and UEFA Champions League for club teams) have each been decided at least once by a penalty shootout. The rules of soccer state that when two teams are tied in an elimination game, and away goals and/or extra time cannot provide a resolution, kicks from the penalty mark are used to decide the winner (FIFA, 2004). Five players from each team take one kick each. If the score is still equal after these 10 kicks, one player from each team takes a kick (sudden death) until one team has scored a

goal more than the other from the same number of kicks. The outcome of kicks from the penalty mark can potentially be attributed to several factors, including psychology (e.g. coping with stress), skill (e.g. using good kicking technique), physiology (e.g. overcoming the fatigue of 120 min play), and chance (e.g. in what direction the goalkeeper moves). Given the relative lack of scientic research examining this phenomenon, alternative sources of information, such as autobiographical narratives (for a more thorough methodological discussion, see Gilbourne, 2002), may provide some helpful direction for context-specic research questions. Thus, because the stress associated with performing these kicks in major international soccer tournaments, such as the World Cup, has been reported to be immense (e.g. Owen, 2005; Pearce, 2000), psychological components are assumed to be especially important for the outcome of each kick. Although no research has been conducted on the specic links between psychological processes and the outcome of kicks from the penalty mark, researchers have revealed links between cognitive processes and performance on single penalty kicks. Most notably, goalkeepers use advance information from hip, kicking leg, non-kicking leg,

Correspondence: G. Jordet, Centre for Human Movement Sciences, University of Groningen, Postbus 196, 9700 AD Groningen, The Netherlands. E-mail: geir.jordet@gmail.com ISSN 0264-0414 print/ISSN 1466-447X online 2007 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/02640410600624020

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G. Jordet et al. or later, kicks. Their data partially supported this hypothesis, with scoring percentages of 77.8%, 80.6%, 86.1%, 65.7%, 72.0%, and 50.0% for kicks #1 through #6, respectively. As the authors point out, however, these data may be confounded by the selected line-up order, with coaches picking the best player to take the rst kick. Unfortunately, the European Championships before 1996, as well as other major international tournaments that could have provided a stronger statistical foundation and additional empirical support for these ndings, were not examined in this study. McGarry and Franks (2000) also assumed that kick ability is important for the outcome of a kick. Although there is some evidence to indicate that the skill of the goalkeeper is positively related to effective anticipation, and consequently penalty kick save performance (e.g. Savelsbergh et al., 2002), the question of how goal-scoring skill is related to penalty kick from performance remains to be answered empirically. Conceptually, goal-scoring skill from the penalty mark is probably constituted by both tactical and technical components. Tactically, shooters can decide to shoot the ball left, right or towards the middle of the goal; shoot high or low; and pick a corner early or wait and react to the movements of the goalkeeper. Technically, it is about executing the tactical decision in the most efcient way, which often means producing a kick with optimal power and accuracy. Interestingly, many players and coaches seem to devalue the role of skill, stating that the outcome of kicks from the penalty mark is based on chance (e.g. Robson, 1998). Consequently, coaches and players often report not practising kicks from the penalty mark (e.g. Hoddle, 1998). Finally, fatigue is hypothesized to have a negative effect on the outcome of kicks in the penalty shootout. Penalty shootouts always take place after 120 min that is, 90 min of regular game time plus 30 min of extra time. Studies have shown that players perform less high-intensity running and sprinting in the second than in the rst half of soccer games (Mohr, Krustrup, & Bangsbo, 2003). This suggests that negative effects of fatigue arise towards the end of a 90 min game. Thus, one may expect fatigue to be even more pronounced when playing 120 min. Glycogen depletion of individual muscle bres seems the most logical explanation for this phenomenon, but dehydration and hyperthermia are also suggested to be involved, especially in hot and humid environments (Mohr, Krustrup, & Bangsbo, 2005). Rahnama, Reilly, Lees and Graham-Smith (2003) demonstrated that exercise simulating the work rate of soccer reduces the capability of muscles to produce force. Furthermore, soccer match analyses showed a decrease in high-intensity running

and body angle to anticipate the kickers left/right and high/low placement of the ball (e.g. Franks & Hanvey, 1997; Savelsbergh, Williams, van der Kamp, & Ward, 2002; Williams & Burwitz, 1993). These ndings encourage the study of other psychological processes. Importance of the outcome is assumed to be indicative of stress and anxiety (Martens, Burton, Vealey, Bump, & Smith, 1990; McGrath, 1970) and anxiety researchers have used event importance to distinguish between stressful and non-stressful conditions (e.g. Eubank & Collins, 2000). This construct would provide one tentative explanation for why kicks from the penalty mark are experienced as stressful. Penalty kicks are perceived to be important because their outcome determines if a team advances or is eliminated from a tournament, or alternatively, they determine a teams nal rank (such as winning a tournament or being placed third). In major tournaments, the importance of each kick is further underscored by the widespread public interest and the vast numbers of people who watch the games live on television. Viewing numbers are particularly high for the World Cup, with one-fth of the worlds population, or 1.1 billion people, reported to have seen the live coverage of the 2002 World Cup nal on television (FIFA Marketing & TV, 2002). The equivalent numbers reported by the organizers of intra-continental tournaments are 270 million for the 2004 European Championship nal (Mark OKeefe, Business Research Manager, Marketing & Media Rights, UEFA) and 59.5 million for the 2004 Copa America nal (Irzio Pinasco, representative for the Organizing Committee of the 2004 Copa America in Peru). When these gures are compared, the importance of the World Cup is clearly highest, with the European Championships the second most important tournament and the Copa America in third place. In the only published study on the penalty shootout in soccer, McGarry and Franks (2000) performed a computerized probability simulation of how the order of the shooters would affect the outcome. The empirical basis for their simulation was data on kicks from the penalty mark in the World Cup from 1982 through 1998 and the European Championship in 1996. The simulation was based on a few assumptions. First, it was argued that later kicks are more important than early kicks. If each kick were to be performed independently of the others, all kicks would be of equal importance. However, in reality, each kick is performed in awareness of both the outcome of the previous kicks and the current standing between the teams. Thus, the researchers expected anxiety to increase with greater kick importance, thereby supposing that fewer goals would be scored from more important,

Kicks from the penalty mark in soccer after the 15 min half-time break, probably as a result of a lower muscle temperature (Mohr, Krustrup, Nybo, Nielsen, & Bangsbo, 2004). These physiological changes may inuence neuromuscular coordination in general and the shooting skills needed for a successful penalty kick in particular (Masuda, Kikuhara, Demura, Katsuta, & Yamanaka, 2005). Furthermore, Cian et al. (2000) provided evidence that prolonged sub-maximal exercise of 2 h leads to a decline in several cognitive functions. So, reduction of shooting skills and impaired cognitive functioning as a result of prolonged exercise and fatigue may affect the outcome of kicks from the penalty mark. The main aim of this study was to estimate the relative importance of some of the major performance components that are assumed to affect the outcome of kicks from the penalty mark that is, psychology (stress), tactics and technique (skill), and physiology (fatigue). Because direct measurements of these constructs from previous major international tournaments would have been both logistically and methodologically impossible, efforts were made to link each of the components to measurable variables from publicly available internet game records. First, we hypothesized that if stress inuences kick outcome, we would observe different results in different tournaments, with inferior kick outcomes in more important tournaments. Thus, we expected fewer goals to be scored in the more internationally prestigious World Cup than in the European Championship and Copa America. The same rationale was used for kick number. If stress has a negative effect on the players, fewer goals should be scored from the most important kicks (i.e. kicks #4 and #5 and the sudden death kicks #6 9) than from kicks that are not immediately decisive for the nal outcome of the shootout (i.e. kicks #1 3). Second, we hypothesized that skill would impact the outcome. To determine skill levels, we obtained data on players positional roles. It is reasonable to assume that players whose most important task, or one of their most important tasks, is to score goals are better goal scorers than other players. Thus, although there are excellent penalty-taking defensive players, it is likely that the more offensive a players role, the better his goalscoring skill will be, also on kicks from the penalty mark. This gives a goal-scoring skill ranking order with forwards ranked at the top, followed by midelders, and then defenders. We also collected data on the players ages to determine whether greater overall experience per se would contribute to penalty kicking skill, which could be the case in particular if the tactical aspects of the skill are of major importance to the outcome. Third, we linked fatigue to total playing time in the game leading up to the kicks from the penalty mark. A player who played a full 120 min

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would most likely be more fatigued than a player with less than 120 min playing time. Thus, we hypothesised that if fatigue plays an important role to the outcome, players substituted into the game late would score more goals than players who participated for most of the game. Methods An internet-based game record analysis was performed of the kicks and the kickers in all penalty shootouts in the three most important international soccer tournaments in the world: the World Cup, European Championships, and Copa America. A total of 409 kicks from the penalty mark were performed in these tournaments (153 kicks in the World Cup, 123 in the European Championships, and 133 in the Copa America). Some of the data (each players playing time, kick number, and kick outcomes) were gathered from the soccer statistics website www.rsssf.com. Once the players were identied, more information about each of them (i.e. positional role and date of birth) was located on other soccer statistics websites such as www.fussballdaten.de. However, because some of the less known players and players from the earliest tournaments were not registered on this site, additional searches of websites with sufcient information were done using www.google.com. At least two independent sources had to provide the same information about positional role and date of birth for it to be used in the analysis. From the total 409 kicks from the penalty mark that were performed in the three tournaments, we failed to nd sufcient information on two players (0.49%) and they were not included in the analysis of those variables. In total, one dependent variable and ve independent variables were examined. The dependent variable, outcome, had two primary values goal or miss. We also determined whether the kick was saved by the goalkeeper or if it missed the goal (shot wide or hit the woodwork). The association between the independent variables and the dependent variable was analysed with univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses. This type of statistical analysis has previously been used to examine other variables and their relationship to the binary outcome (i.e. goal or not a goal) of soccer attacks (Ensum, Pollard, & Taylor, 2004; Pollard & Reep, 1997). In the univariate logistic regression analyses, the association between the single variables and the outcome of each kick was investigated. In the multivariate logistic regression analyses, the multivariate associations between the variables and outcome were investigated, including interaction terms. We used the enter method and operated with a signicance level of P  0.05.

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G. Jordet et al. (played 31 90 min), and late substitutes (played 1 30 min).

Two independent variables were used to provide information about stress. Tournament was derived directly from the soccer statistics website, where the kicks from the penalty mark were found in the section for each tournament. Kick number was determined relatively within each team that is, the rst player for each team was number one, the second player for each team was number two, and so on. Because kicks #6, #7, #8, and #9 consisted of relatively few attempts for each category (20, 4, 2, and 2, respectively) and the rules for these kicks (sudden death) vary from kicks #1 to 5, they were mainly grouped together in the analysis as kicks #6 9. Goal-scoring skill was primarily derived from positional role. Position had three primary values forward, midelder, and defender. This distinction is most logical when teams play with three lines of attack/defence (e.g. 4-4-2, 4-3-3, 4-5-1), which is most common in international matches. Some problems arose when players were reported to be positioned between the forwards and the midelders, or when their positions were described as forwards, but all the way to the side, next to the sidelines. For these cases, a question that was deemed to be relevant for our specic purpose of distinguishing between these positions was posed: Is the players primary task to score goals (here dened as the primary task of the forward) or to set up others (dened as the primary task of the midelder)? Most of these players were categorized as midelders. The player population also included two goalkeepers, both of whom were classied as defenders. In those cases where inconsistent information was available about position, a soccer historian was consulted. The player in question was then discussed and a decision was arrived at by the researchers in the research team and the historian. To determine the level of general experience, each players date of birth and the date of the kicks from the penalty mark were used to determine the players age at the point of the kicks. The players mean age was 26.1 (s 3.45) years. For the analysis, the players were split into three age categories, determined by the mean age and one standard deviation on either side of the mean. This gave the categories younger (18 22 years of age), medium (23 28 years), and older (29 35 years). The physiological component of the performance (fatigue) was derived using playing time as a variable. Each of the players playing times was calculated from the information about the starters on the team and when players were substituted. For the purpose of the analysis, each kick was placed in one of three categories based on how much time the player had played in the game: starters and early substitutes (played 91 120 min), mid-game substitutes

Results Descriptive and univariate results Since ofcial approval by FIFA (Fe de ration Internationale de Football Association) on 27 June 1970 (Miller, 1998), penalty shootouts have been on the programme in 22 World Cup, European Championship, and Copa America tournaments. They have been used after 41 games, comprising 21.8% of the total number of games that potentially could go to kicks from the penalty mark in these tournaments (i.e. 1/8 nal, quarter-nal, semi-nal, match for third place, and nal). A total of 336 players have performed 409 kicks (one player had four kicks, 12 players had three kicks, and 46 players had two kicks). Of all 409 kicks, 323 were successful and 86 were unsuccessful (total goal percentage 78.9%). Of the misses, more than twice as many kicks (n 60, 14.7%) were saved by the goalkeeper as were shot wide or at the posts/crossbar (n 26, 6.4%). Tournament. There were differences in outcome for the three tournaments. In the World Cup, penaltytakers scored with 71.2% of their attempts, in the Copa America they scored with 82.7%, and in the European Championships with 84.6% (see Table I). Compared to the World Cup, the chance of scoring in the two other tournaments was higher (European Championships: odds ratio 1.93, P 0.02; Copa America: odds ratio 2.21, P 0.01). Although non-signicant, more kicks were saved by the goalkeepers in World Cup (70.5% of the total misses were saved by the goalkeeper and 29.5% were shot wide of the goal) than in European Championships (57.9% saves). However, goalkeepers in Copa America saved even more kicks (78.3%). Kick number. With the exception of kick #5, the kicks became progressively less successful from the start to the end. Kick #1 was most likely to result in a goal (86.6% goals) and kicks #6 9 least likely to (64.3% goals) (see Figure 1). In the univariate analyses, only the difference between kick #1 and kicks #6 9 was signicant (odds ratio 3.58, P 0.012) (see Table I). However, signicantly fewer goals were scored from kicks #4 9 combined (73.6%) than from kicks #1 3 (82.5%) (odds ratio 1.69, P 0.032). An additional analysis showed that only one player has missed the rst kick for his team in Copa America (96.4% goals), compared with European Championships (86.3%) and World Cup (78.1%). The difference between the rst kicks taken in Copa America and World Cups was signicant

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Table I. Descriptive and univariate logistic regression analysis results for tournament, kick number, position, playing time and age, and their relationship to kick outcome. Variable Tournament Copa America European Championship World Cup Kick number Kick #1 Kick #2 Kick #3 Kick #4 Kick #5 Kick #6 9 Positional role Forward Midelder Defender Playing time 1 30 min 31 90 min 91 120 min Age 18 22 years 23 28 years 29 35 years Total N % Goal Miss Goal % OR P

133 123 153 82 82 82 80 55 28 124 162 121 15 72 322 61 241 105 409

32.5 30.1 37.4 20 20 20 19.6 13.4 6.8 30.5 39.8 29.7 3.7 17.6 78.7 14.9 58.9 25.7 100

110 104 109 71 67 65 58 44 18 103 129 89 13 59 251 52 187 82 323

23 19 44 11 15 17 22 11 10 21 33 32 2 13 72 9 54 23 86

82.7 84.6 71.2 86.6 81.7 79.3 72.5 80 64.3 83.1 79.6 73.6 86.7 81.9 80 85.2 77.6 78.1 78.9

2.21 1.93 1 3.58 2.48 2.12 1.47 2.22 1 1.76 1.43 1 1.84 1.28 1 1.62 0.97 1

0.010 0.024 Ref. 0.012 0.062 0.116 0.414 0.124 Ref. 0.073 0.230 Ref. 0.430 0.455 Ref. 0.263 0.978 Ref.

Note: The odds ratio (OR) reects the chance of achieving success, compared with the reference (Ref.).

between tournaments, but only one difference between Copa America and World Cup was signicant (odds ratio 2.5, for midelders in Copa America with reference to midelders in World Cup, P 0.047). In the European Championships and the Copa America, midelders scored as often (87.1%) as forwards (86.1%), whereas World Cup forwards scored more (77.8%) than World Cup midelders (69.6%). Age. Most of the players taking a kick were between 23 and 28 years of age (n 241, 58.9%), followed by players between 29 and 35 years (n 105, 25.7%) and those between 18 and 22 years (n 61, 14.9%). There was no signicant difference in mean age of the players who scored (mean 26, s 3.48) and those who missed (mean 26.4, s 3.33). However, the youngest players were the most effective scorers, although this was not signicant (see Table I). The players under 22 years scored more often (85.2%) than players of medium (77.6%) and older age (78.1%). These differences were slightly higher in the World Cup where the players under 22 (n 23) scored with 82.6 % of their attempts, the players between 23 and 28 years (n 84) scored with 66.7 % of their kicks, and the players older than 29 years (n 46) scored with 73.9% of their attempts.

Figure 1. Goal % and results from the multivariate logistic regression analyses for different kick numbers. The odds ratio (OR) reects the chance of achieving success, compared with the reference (Ref.).

(odds ratio 11.14, for Copa America with reference to World Cup, P 0.019). Positional role. Midelders took more kicks (n 162, 39.6%) than forwards (n 124, 30.3%) and defenders (n 121, 29.6%). However, forwards were more successful with their kicks (83.1% goals) than midelders (79.6%) and defenders (73.4%). Table I shows that forwards were 1.76 times more likely to score than defenders (odds ratio), but this was not signicant (P 0.073). There were minor differences

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G. Jordet et al. #6 9 in the analysis. Moreover, compared with the univariate analyses, the multivariate analysis showed a stronger, but still non-signicant difference between the youngest and oldest group (odds ratio 1.87, P 0.176), and a weaker nonsignicant difference between defenders and forwards (odds ratio 1.72, P 0.115). Discussion A widespread belief in the soccer community is that the outcome of kicks from the penalty mark is like the outcome of a lottery and thus that these kicks cannot be practised. Our analyses contradict this position and show that the outcomes of kicks from the penalty mark follow a logical pattern involving factors that can be inuenced by systematic practice and preparation. Most importantly, the psychological variables showed a stronger relationship to outcome than any of the other variables. Specically, the relative importance of each kick, determined by the type of tournament and the kick number, was signicantly related to the outcomes of the kicks. Fewer goals were scored in the most important and prestigious tournament (World Cup) than in the less important intra-continental tournaments (European Championships and Copa America). Moreover, the probability of success declined progressively with each kick. This means that fewer goals were scored on kicks that were more immediately decisive to the outcome (kicks #4, #5, and #6 9) than the initial kicks (kicks #1 3). Thus, given that players both in the most important tournament and on the most directly decisive kicks scored fewer goals, the hypothesis that importance of the outcome adds extra stress, which reduces the performance of the shooters, is supported. Some alternative explanations have to be examined before denite conclusions can be drawn about this nding. For example, could it be that fewer goals were scored in the World Cup because goalkeepers in that tournament were more skilled than goalkeepers in the other tournaments? Our data do not support this hypothesis, given that almost 10% more kicks were saved (and fewer kicks went wide of the goal) by goalkeepers in Copa America than in the World Cup. Other potential differences in quality between players in the three tournaments may still be responsible for parts of these results, but no data pointing in that direction were found. Furthermore, could the kick order differences also be explained by factors other than kick importance, for example by how coaches select players for each kick? This point is legitimate because skilled players probably are picked for the rst kick, with the purpose of securing a good start and less skilled players are picked for the sixth kick and on, because the ve

Playing time. A total of 90 players (22%) took a kick after being substituted into the game. Upon breaking playing time down further, only 15 players (3.7%) played less than 30 min, 72 players (17.6%) played between 31 and 90 min, and 322 players played between 90 and 120 min (78.7%). There were no signicant differences between any of these groups, although the trend was in the direction of more goals with less playing time (see Table I). Furthermore, there was a slight tendency that the players who played for more than 90 min and missed their kick, more often placed the ball wide of the goal (24 of 71 misses, 33.8%) than the players who played less than 90 min and missed their kick (2 of 15 misses, 13.3%). Finally, one interesting descriptive result was related to positional role. Compared with the mean goal-scoring percentage for defenders (73.6%), the defenders who were substituted into the game (n 11) all scored (100%), whereas the defenders who played 90 min or more scored less than the mean for defenders (70.1%). The results were in the other direction for midelders and forwards, with those playing most scoring more (81.1%) and those playing least scoring less (77.8%). Multivariate analyses The multivariate logistic regression analysis shows that tournament and kick order were most strongly related to kick outcome. There were especially marked differences between World Cups and European Championships (odds ratio 3.01, P 0.001, for European Championships with reference to World Cup) and between kicks #6 9 and kick #1 (odds ratio 5.42, P 0.002, for kick #1 with reference to kicks #6 9) (see Table II). All kicks except kick #4 were signicantly different from kicks

Table II. Multivariate logistic regression analysis results for the relationship between tournament, position, playing time and age, and their relationship to kick outcome. Variable Tournament Categories Copa America European Championship World Cup Forward Midelder Defender 1 30 min 31 90 min 91 120 min 18 22 years 23 28 years 29 35 years OR 2.18 3.01 1.0 1.72 1.53 1.0 2.39 0.99 1.0 1.87 0.96 1.0 P 0.011 0.001 Ref. 0.115 0.165 Ref. 0.273 0.977 Ref. 0.176 0.898 Ref.

Position

Playing time

Age

Note: The odds ratio (OR) reects the chance of achieving success, compared with the reference (Ref.).

Kicks from the penalty mark in soccer most skilled players already have been used for kicks #1 5. Skilled players may also have been picked for kick #5, which would explain why these kicks, contrary to what would be expected from the trend of the other kicks (see Figure 1), were more successful than kicks #3 and #4. However, these confounding factors cannot explain the decline in success between kicks #2, #3, and #4. Thus, the hypothesis about the inuence of kick importance is still plausible. Although not tested directly, it is likely that the processes through which the increased kick importance negatively affects the outcome are related to negative emotional processes (such as anxiety) caused by the added stress. This is supported by theory (e.g. Martens et al., 1990) and research on anxiety and stress (e.g. Eubank & Collins, 2000) stating that high perceived importance of an event leads to stress and anxiety. Finally, the results are consistent with the assertions of McGarry and Franks (2000) that anxiety increases as each kick gradually becomes more important for the outcome of the penalty shootout. However, our data show that McGarry and Franks (2000) observation that the goal probabilities of each kick from kick #1 to kick #6 follows an inverted-U, with the least successful kicks early and late, does not stand up when applied to a larger data set. Rather, our data suggest that goal probability follows a negatively linear curve (imagine drawing a line through the data points in Figure 1), with higher anxiety progressively resulting in a poorer outcome. A potential explanation for this relationship between anxiety and performance may be that the stress experienced when participating in a penalty shootout is so high that players, merely upon participating, are already about to go beyond their optimal anxiety level. Thus, guratively, these players may be on the verge of going over the top on the classical inverted-U (e.g. Hebb, 1955), where additional anxiety results in decrements in performance. If more anxiety is then added, whether as a result of the importance of the tournament, the importance of a particularly decisive kick, or from another source, the total anxiety may become sufciently great that players are unable to cope with it, with the result being a drop in performance. More research is needed to reveal how these stress mechanisms specically affect players participating in penalty shootouts in international matches. Relevant questions to be asked are what effect does kick importance have on players anxiety before and during the kicks, what other sources of stress inuence players in these situations, what types of anxiety does stress lead to (debilitative or facilitative), and how is the stress experienced and coped with by the players? A more direct follow up of this study

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would be to validate the hypothesized links between performance components and the study variables. One suggestion is to examine those instances where the event can be won or lost with a single shot and thus where the importance of a kick may vary within each kick number. Data from this study, or similar data, could be investigated with a more precise denition of kick importance, one that for example operates with levels of probability for winning/losing for various shot numbers, depending on the current score before each kick (for how similar probabilities have been assessed with points in tennis, see Morris, 1977). Another premise in the McGarry and Franks (2000) study was that player ability, or skill, is important to the outcome. Although it is difcult to objectively determine and rank players based on their specic skills, there is probably a positive relationship between task-specic experience and skill on that task. Thus, we found a trend (P 0.073 in the univariate analysis and 0.115 in the multivariate analysis) for players who normally have substantial goal-scoring experience (forwards) to score more goals than players who normally have less goalscoring experience (defenders). If such a relationship between skill and outcome exists, this is most likely based on task-specic experience and not general experience, given that older age was clearly not related to success in this study. In fact, there was a non-signicant trend in the opposite direction younger players score more goals than older players. A potential relationship between positional role and outcome is important practically because in the literature no empirical links have been shown between the outcome of kicks from the penalty mark and goal-scoring skill, and consequently goal-scoring practice. Although we cannot conclude too strongly based on these data, the results of our study provide the rst indications that such a relationship may exist. Moreover, several reasons may be offered for a potential negative coupling between age and outcome. Younger players may be less prone to stress (e.g. Molander & Ba ckman, 1996) or they may have fewer experiences, their own or vicariously, of failures in these particular situations. Interviews with players of different ages who have taken part in a penalty shootout could shed more light on this trend. We did not observe any signicant relationship between fatigue (playing time) and kick outcome. However, this may be a result of relatively few substitutes taking a kick (n 87), making it difcult to draw statistically valid conclusions. The trends in the data suggest that fatigue may have a negative effect on outcome, and that this is especially the case for defenders. It has been shown that defenders run signicantly less during games than midelders and

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G. Jordet et al. based on low numbers of players, coaches may be interested to know that forwards have a tendency to score more goals than defenders, substitutes are likely to score more than starters, and younger players often score more than older players. References
Bull, S. J., & Shambrook, C. J. (2004). Soccer. The mind game: Seven steps to achieving mental toughness. Wiltshire, UK: The Crowood Press. Cian, C., Koulmann, N., Barraud, P. A., Raphael, C., Jimenez, C., & Melin, B. (2000). Inuence of variations in body hydration on cognitive functioning: Effect of hyperhydration, heat, stress, and exercise-induced dehydration. Journal of Psychophysiology, 14, 29 36. Ensum, J., Pollard, R., & Taylor, S. (2004). Applications of logistic regression to kicks at goal in association football: Calculation of kick probabilities, quantication of factors and player/team. Journal of Sports Sciences, 22, 504. Eubank, M., & Collins, D. (2000). Coping with pre- and in-event uctuations in competitive state anxiety: A longitudinal approach. Journal of Sports Sciences, 18, 121 131. FIFA (2004). Laws of the game 2004 (available at: http://www.fa.com/en/regulations/regulation/0,1584,3,00.html; accessed 11 March 2005). FIFA Marketing & TV (2002). 2002 FIFA World CupTM TV coverage (available at: http://www.fa.com/en/marketing/ newmedia/index/0,3509,10,00.html; accessed 31 March 2005). Franks, I. M., & Hanvey, T. (1997). Cues for goalkeepers: Hightech methods used to measure penalty shot response. Soccer Journal, 42, 30 33. Gilbourne, D. (2002). Sports participation, sports injury and altered images of self: An autobiographical narrative of a lifelong legacy. Reective Practice, 3, 71 88. Hebb, D. O. (1955). Drive in the C.N.S. (conceptual nervous system). Psychological Review, 62, 243 254. Hoddle, G. (1998). My 1998 World Cup story (with David Davies). London: Andre Deutsch. Martens, R., Burton, D., Vealey, R. S., Bump, L. A., & Smith, E. D. (1990). Development and validation of the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI-2). In R. Martens, R. S. Vealey, & D. Burton (Eds.), Competitive anxiety in sport (pp. 117 123). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Masuda, K., Kikuhara, K., Demura, S., Katsuta, S., & Yamanaka, K. (2005). Relationship between muscle strength in various isokinetic movements and kick performance among soccer players. Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness, 45, 44 52. McGarry, T., & Franks, I. M. (2000). On winning the penalty shoot-out in soccer. Journal of Sports Sciences, 18, 401 409. McGrath, J. E. (1970). Major methodological issues. In J. E. McGrath (Ed.), Social and psychological factors in stress (pp. 19 49). New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston. Miller, C. (1998). He always puts it to the right: A history of the penalty kick. London: Orion Books. Mohr, M., Krustrup, P., & Bangsbo, J. (2003). Match performance of high-standard soccer players with special reference to development of fatigue. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 21, 519 528. Mohr, M., Krustrup, P., & Bangsbo, J. (2005). Fatigue in soccer: A brief review. Journal of Sports Sciences, 231, 593 599. Mohr, M., Krustrup, P., Nybo, L., Nielsen, J. J., & Bangsbo, J. (2004). Muscle temperature and sprint performance during soccer matches benecial effects of re-warm-up at half time. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports, 15, 136 143.

forwards (Mohr et al., 2003), which suggests that defenders are less t and thus less able to cope with the additional workload of 30 min extra time. In general, however, it should be noted that some of the substitutes, especially the 15 who came into the game during extra time (of whom 6 took to the eld in the nal 15 min) may have been substituted in because they are good penalty-takers, which could attribute some of these results to factors other than fatigue. Further research that incorporates objective measures of fatigue and corresponding mechanisms in relation to taking penalties is required to obtain a clearer picture of the role of fatigue in the penalty shootout. In conclusion, the strength of the kick importance ndings, compared with those for skill and fatigue, imply that psychological components have a greater impact on the outcome of kicks in the penalty shootout than skill and physiological components. Thus, researchers should give priority to psychological processes such as stress and coping when studying kicks from the penalty mark. Moreover, knowledge about psychology should be used to prepare teams for these contests. Having reviewed some directions for future research above, we now turn to a few implications our results may have for coaches and players who want their teams to succeed in the penalty shootout. First, applying stress control strategies that reduce the perceived importance of the kicks can have a positive inuence on the outcome. For example, players may use cognitive restructuring techniques to imagine and/or instruct oneself to believe that the kicks from the penalty mark are practice kicks, rather than decisive kicks in a major tournament. Moreover, systematic pre-performance routines (for an application with penalty kicks, see Bull & Shambrook, 2004) can further contribute to move the players focus away from the importance of the kick and onto more constructive task-specic cues (physical and cognitive) leading up to the kick. Second, our results highlight some specic components of kicks in the penalty shootout that can be used to simulate these events as accurately as possible in practice. For example, stress can be simulated by increasing the importance of a practice kick (e.g. with extra spectators, publication of results to media, and distribution of rewards or punishments) or by assigning players to specic kick numbers that are more or less important for the total outcome. Finally, although somewhat speculative, our results provide information that can be used to create a prole of players who typically score and those who typically miss. This information can be used when coaches make decisions about who to select to participate in a penalty shootout. Although most of these results were descriptive in nature and

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Rahnama, N., Reilly, T., Lees, A., & Graham-Smith, P. (2003). Muscle fatigue induced by exercise simulating the work rate of competitive soccer. Journal of Sports Sciences, 21, 933 942. Robson, B. (1998). Bobby Robson: An Englishman abroad. My autobiography. London: Pan Books. Savelsbergh, G. J. P., Williams, A. M., van der Kamp, J., & Ward, P. (2002). Visual search, anticipation and expertise in soccer goalkeepers. Journal of Sports Sciences, 20, 279 287. Williams, A. M., & Burwitz, L. (1993). Advance cue utilization in soccer. In T. Reilly, J. Clarys, & A. Stibbe (Eds.), Science and football II (pp. 239 243). London: E & FN Spon.