How a Penalty Shootout is equivalent to Public Speaking

With the just concluded soccer world cup in Brazil, it just seems right to look at Penalty Shootouts a little more deeply.

It is a foregone conclusion that winning a soccer game through a penalty shootout is more psychological than technical, though many still call it ‘luck’. While individual players are quite successful in hitting penalty shots in the middle of a game, if a penalty is awarded, the same player can ‘choke’ when taking a shot in the penalty shootout that determines the outcome of the game. Consider that England has never won a penalty shootout at the World Cup. 

In the quarter-final match between Costa Rica and Netherlands, Dutch coach Louis van Gaal sent the taller Krul in as a last-minute substitute for starting goalkeeper Jasper Cillessen just moments before the shootout.

Some spectators may have thought this was because Krul had been stronger in the shootout scenario but British journalist & author of the 2001 book On Penalties, Andrew Anthony told CBC News that van Gaal wanted to get to the Costa Ricans psychologically, by getting Krul to fill "the space as much as possible with his physical presence, and clearly it worked."

So, Why am I speaking about penalties while considering public speaking? (And here public speaking does not mean giving a speech to hordes of people....it could even be addressing a meeting or making a presentation or being on stage for a talk). What is the commonality between a penalty shoot-out and public speaking? Anxiety is one of them and lots more….Read on to find out.

According to Andrew Anthony, author of the 2001 book "On Penalties", the shootout is about "the drama of decision-making."

"It all comes down to that moment as you walk from the centre circle to the penalty spot", which is the walk that players have to do. "You are walking down a kind of corridor of truth."

He notes, "Life often comes down to these dramatic moments of decision-making, although usually not watched by a billion people around the world."

When you are preparing to go out to the podium for a public speech or a presentation to a group of people where the outcome is very important for you, have you ever thought, ‘I have to nail this’ and then you start thinking about how to do that – whether your opening line needs more punch, what if people donot respond, what if somebody asks a question that you cannot answer etc etc. So, at that moment, while you are deciding how to nail it, you are already setting yourself up for failure.

"Anxiety is the most significant contributing factor to performance failure in football penalty shootouts" according to an Expert Statement on the Psychological Preparation for Football Penalty Shootouts, a paper prepared for the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences in 2013.

The penalty shootout is one of the few occasions in the game when players “have sufficient time to think about the consequences of failure”.

So, in those crucial minutes before the actual performance, getting into that mind space where we allow our bodies to instinctively react rather than allow our mind to dictate, is very important.

How does a football player practice for a penalty shootout? Anthony advises players to have in mind before the referee blows the whistle, where they are going to kick the ball. "Whatever you decide, you should stick to that and not change it." When they try to second-guess the goalkeeper, that's when they come undone.

"You've got to practice, you've got to have it as part of your muscle memory exactly where you are going to put the ball."

Basically, what this says is for the players to ignore the goalkeeper completely (who is bouncing about and also sledging and heckling, by the way) and focus on that one spot where he has practised hitting. Allow his muscle memory to take over and not his mind.

What about a public speaker? Likewise, practice your speech again and again and again and once more. You have to create your muscle memory first unless you have done this multiple times already before.

Have you ever thought ‘I will see how the audience reacts and I will change my game plan accordingly?' Wrong.
It is just like the football player thinking I will see which way the goal-keeper goes and then shoot, which never works. That will only increase the ‘anxiety’ – focus on the game plan that you have practised. Focus on ONE person in the audience and speak to that person as if you are having a 1:1 conversation – find your spot. Donot try to scan the whole goal post figuring out where to hit or donot scan the whole audience speaking to everybody. And if your mind comes in and says ‘you are doing this wrong’, or ‘people are not responding’, ‘make a joke now’, ‘you did not follow what you had practised’, ask your brain to take a small vacation.

The good part is, you have multiple opportunities to redeem yourself unlike a penalty shot. Do stop and assess and engage with the audience but DONOT allow your mind to take control of the proceedings, which is when you will know that you have missed the shot.

What happens when the mind takes control? Instead of engaging with the audience, you are actually having a dialog or listening to your head. So, if you are engaged with yourself, how can you possibly be engaged with the audience?

Taking a penalty in the shootout is a psychological game and so is public speaking. While getting your content, your tone of voice, your body movements etc are the technical aspects of public speaking, focus on your inner game as well.

The same dutch team lost out on penalty shootout to Argentina in the semi-finals - why? Could this be more than just bad luck? The discussion can go either way. And the fact remains that Ron Vlaar took the first penalty because nobody else was ready to take the first penalty and probably (tiny possibility) Ron Vlaar allowed his head to start thinking of consequences. And of course, Van Gaal had exhausted his substitutes and so he could not use his psychological move of using Kraal again.....