Just in time for the 2010 World Cup, a new study may explain why the England soccer team keeps losing in penalty shootouts.
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To improve scoring chances on penalty kicks, soccer players should train their eyes, rather than their feet, for success.
A research team from the University of Exeter concluded that anxiety-induced eye movements diminish shooting accuracy in penalty kick scenarios.
Instead of focusing on a target area in the net, the study found that anxious kickers look at the threatening goalkeeper. As a result, the kickers were more likely to direct their shots toward the keeper and miss.
"If a player shoots the ball to an optimal scoring location with adequate speed, then the goalkeeper will have insufficient time to react and save the shot," said Greg Wood, a study author at the University of Exeter's School of Sport and Health Sciences. "Therefore, due to the kicker feeling anxious, being the favorite in this scenario and the outcome being more in his control … we looked at this from the kicker's perspective."
Woods and co-researchers tracked the eye movements of 14 experienced soccer players attempting penalty kicks in both a low-pressure environment with no stated consequences for missing or making shots and a high-pressure situation publicizing participants' performance results with a cash prize for the most accurate player.
To assess kicking accuracy, the researchers scored shots according to the ball's distance from the center of the goal, away from the keeper.
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The study results confirm the predictions of attentional control theory (ACT), which posits that anxiety disrupts a person's focus on an intended goal and shifts it toward a threatening stimulus, in this case the goalkeeper.
"Using eye movements to measure attentional disruption highlights the mechanism by which anxiety may degrade performance, particularly in aiming-based tasks," Wood said. "It's very hard to shift a focus of attention without shifting the eyes."
With the help of similar eye-tracking technology, Dr. Joan Vickers at the University of Calgary has examined this connection between gaze control and athletic performance in a variety of sports, including hockey, volleyball, golf, basketball and soccer.
"What (this study) confirms is that success under high pressure is dependent on your ability to control your mind -- specifically, your visual attention," Vickers told Discovery News.
This research also builds on Vickers' "quiet eye technique" for directing players' eyes to specific locations, such as the upper corners of a soccer net, which allow the brain and body movements to synch up for more accurate aiming.
"The greatest influence is the decision the kicker makes prior to the in-run," Vickers said. "If he is undecided about what to do, then he will be more anxious, have erratic eye movements and will be more prone to deception, which in turn will lead to a mistake."
Based on the study results, Woods plans to design a training routine to help soccer players maintain their gaze on the goal during penalty kicks.
"This way, the shot will benefit from the coordination between the eyes and the limb movements, and this approach should allow their eyes to provide the brain with target-specific information necessary for producing an accurate shot," Woods said.
Cristen Conger is a writer for HowStuffWorks.com.
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