The World Cup kicked off last week. Time for researchers to come up with tips and tricks to improve your favorite team’s score. One of the essential elements in World Cups are the penalties. The ball is placed 11 meters from the goal and the opponent tries to ‘fool’ the keeper in a medieval duel style. You might think that a bog hole of 7,32 by 2,44 meters should be big enough not to miss, but that is wrong. Regardless of the keeper, topscorers still manage to shoot wide and make the goalie unemployed.
How come?
For the same reason as the pink elephant in innovation processes. The pink elephant in innovation is the symbol of all the negative concept approaches. An example: if SlimFast launches an new product by telling that ‘this is not a diet’, the innovation will fail. Because the message mentioned the ‘bad word’ of diet.
The easiest way to demonstrate the strength of words planted in our minds is the pink elephant. Tell anyone ‘not to think of a pink elephant’ and they will think of one. By expressing the words, the damage is already being done. The same goes for penalties.
There are 2 main reasons why even topscorers miss penalties.
1. Stress: Research has shown that the team that is winning is the penalties scores 92% of the penalties. They’re already winning so the stress is less. The losing team only scores 60% of the penalties; the stress caused by the urge to make up arrears makes them miss far more. Furthermore, the score rate decreases as the number of penalties to take decreases. Almost 87% of the players score the first penalty, 82% score the second and only 79% the third. If you miss the first penalty, there’s still room to catch up. IF you miss the third, the damage is more difficult to recover thus the stress increases...
2. Pink elephant: Even topscorers that are coached by mentioning the things not to focus on (don’t aim the keeper, don’t miss, don’t shoot wide...) don’t only take more time to take shoot but also have a lower hit rate than positively coached players (chose your angle, hit it hard...).
Add the annoying effect of the vuvuzelas in the South African World Cup and you have all reasons to avoid penalties. Euhm, all reasons 'to win in 90 minutes'. Let’s stay positive even when our mind is playing with us!
Research: University of Exeter, University of Amsterdam, Norwegian School of Sport Sciences
