WHEN IRELAND WERE knocked out of the 2002 World Cup in Suwon, Mick McCarthy and some of his players marked the end of their tournament with a night in Mullgian’s Irish bar in Seoul.
“They’re footloose and fancy-free,” McCarthy said of his players the morning after the game in which Ian Harte — during the game — David Connolly, Kevin Kilbane and Matt Holland all missed penalties in the tie with Spain.
“Their abiding memory of the World Cup will be of missing a penalty and it shouldn’t be that,” the Ireland boss told reporters. “It should be how well they’ve played, how well they’ve conducted themselves and how much they’ve achieved.”
In the run-up to the second-round game it became clear that McCarthy, like many coaches, was not one to be preoccupied with routinely practising spotters, insisting that the high-pressure conditions of shootouts cannot be replicated.
“Golfers never say, well you can’t prepare for a putt to win the Ryder Cup,” says Ben Lyttleton, the author of a new book on the psychology of penalty shootouts.
“When Martin Kaymer or Paul McGinley are standing over a putt to win the Ryder Cup no one says, ‘well, this is a lottery’ like they do in a shoot-out. And the similarities with golf and penos… there’s a lot of crossover actually. As well as the static ball and the single target you have time to over think it. It’s the moment in between the shots that kill you. It’s the mental strength that you have that will determine the success or failure of that shot.
“I spoke to an American football kicking coach because just as you have penos to win games in football, so you have field goals to win Super Bowls or something like that. So I spoke to the coach that trained the only player to kick two last-minute Super Bowl field goals, which were both over 40 yards for the New England Patriots.
“And he was very interesting about the technique but also about the psychology because in American Football these guys are kicking specialists. They’re whole job is about just kicking this ball through the post. It’s different to football but I do argue that there’s a case to be made for bringing a penalty specialist along.”
Often after a tournament exit, managers will shrug and vow to move on to the next challenge rather than taking any responsibility for the result.
“Dave Brailsford, the head of British cycling, is addressing the England players before they go to Brazil and he spoke a lot about the coaching and the management of shoot-outs,” says Lyttleton.
“And the blaming of the lottery of it, was some kind of abdication of it from the management. And if he was a manager — and he’s obviously famous for marginal gains and in a way micro managing his players — he’d tell the penalty kickers where to put it.
“Because, he says, the first thing that goes in a stressful situation is your decision-making faculties. So if you’re walking to the ball and the coach has said to you ‘I know where you’re best at and where the goalkeeper is best, so kick the ball to this side, and if you miss, it’s my responsibility, not yours’.
“That gives the players one less thing to worry about. And they should be focused on their process, their routine, not the outcome.”
Lyttleton, a well-known English football journalist says the motivation behind the book was to identify the root of his country’s problems from 12 yards and then to find solutions. It’s clear, this is a study in psychology rather than technique.
“Well, the assumption is if you’re playing for your country, technically you should be good enough to score a penalty,” he tells TheScore.ie. “So it’s not a handbook for kids — though it can be useful for them from a mental point of view — but if you’re playing an international tournament for your country you should be good enough to score a penalty.
“And indeed, many players who’ve scored penalties for their clubs and failed to so so for their country. So it’s not a question of technique but it does come down to the psychology, the mindset but also, what the players are doing to make them miss. There are things that are technical in terms of the run up and the approach that perhaps could be improved.
He continues: “Gary Lineker thinks its down to technique because when we get to extra time, after a game in which we’re running around after the ball, we’re more tired when it comes to the shoot-out itself.
“And it’s the fatigue that kills us in the shoot-out; that’s one school of thought and there might be something in that. But in terms of the ability to kick a ball 12 yards, it shouldn’t make that much difference whether you’re a technical player like a Spaniard or brought up playing English football with a different background.
“There is a sense that it’s a lottery, which I hope I prove in the book that it certainly isn’t. In terms of what England do wrong, I found some tangible reasons for them losing and some intangible.
“One is that they rush their penalties. So the time between the ref blowing his whistle to denote the pen can be taken and then the run up by the player to take his penalty for England players is quicker than any other nation.
On average, response time is 0.28 seconds. And to put that in context, Usain Bolt’s wait time is 0.18 seconds. So they’re seeing the referee’s whistle as a starting pistol. On your marks get set go. Start your run up and get it over with.
But in truth, the referee’s whistle is a sign to the player to say ‘when you are ready, take your penalty’. And if you look at experienced players – from other nationalities, successful and experience penalty takers — what they do when they hear the whistle is take a deep breath. Just one. It’s almost something you’d miss. They just wait one second, but that one second makes all the difference because it composes them and shows they are kicking the ball when they are ready not when someone else is telling them to be ready.”
Going out of international tournaments on penalties now seems hard-wired into English football’s DNA; but does the rest of Planet Football realise this is part of their build-up?
“Yeah it’s really well known,” says Lyttleton, “to the point that in 2006 when England were playing Portugal, Wayne Rooney was sent off in extra-time.
“Instead of pushing for the goal, which you’d expect them to do given they have a man advantage, Portugal sat back and played for the draw because they were so confident going into penalties. And that story came from Ricardo, the goalkeeper who saved three penalties in that shoot-out. And he told me that Owen Hargreaves was the only England player to score a penalty in that shoot-out and he was named man of the match. And Ricardo felt that he got it because he scored his kick.
But yeah, tThe starting point of my book is not to criticise England’s penalty takers at all. It’s top admit that we have a problem and try to find solutions to help because I’m an Englishman and an England fan and I just can;t cope with it any more. I just can’t stand us losing on penalties again.”
