A study that looked at the brain activity of soccer players while they were taking a penalty kick showed why some miss while others score. Those who m

For soccer players, the less brain they use, the better for penalty kicks

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2021-05-23 11:30:07

A study that looked at the brain activity of soccer players while they were taking a penalty kick showed why some miss while others score. Those who miss are overthinking things, those who score are going on pure motor control. 

Max Slutter, a Masters student at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, wanted to understand how it could be that soccer players who are capable of pinpoint passing and amazing ball control, could possibly miss a simple penalty kick.

After all, soccer nets are large, and the ball is placed only 11 metres away. Still there have been some classic misses in huge events, including league championships and World Cups.

For the study, 22 volunteers took a total of 15 penalty kicks in three separate rounds. They were wearing functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) headsets. This technology measures brain activity while a participant is on the move.

With each round, the pressure to score increased. In the first round, there was no goalkeeper. In the second round, there was a goalkeeper present, but they made little effort to prevent scoring. The third round was as close to real game conditions as possible, including distraction such as 'trash talking'. 

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