Shootout: what penalties say about life

Football is a global language and the shootout is the end to Shakespearian tragedy.

Simon Burton-Jones

Simon is Bishop of Tonbridge in the Diocese of Rochester. He writes regularly round social, cultural and political issues.

England v Columbia: 2018 World Cup shootout.

It is hard to pity entitled, overpaid footballers. Until, that is, it comes down to penalties after extra time. Even when you do not care who wins, the drama of the penalty shootout is so intense and all-consuming that every heart rate quickens.

Is there a more exquisite form of sporting torture?

Sport is laden with cliché, and the refrain, ‘it’s come down to the lottery of penalties’ is an established part of the lexicon. But is it just the spin of the roulette? That you can’t prepare effectively for the cauldron of the stadium?

Not according to Geir Jordet, it isn’t. The Norwegian Professor of Psychology and Football is on a mission to convince the world there is lots you can do to get ready and those that don’t are more likely to fail.

There is skill involved in taking a penalty, an ability that can be honed with practice. Individual players can be trained to take their time (but not too long), to establish a routine that helps them take control of the situation, to take careful breaths, and to focus. They can be helped with blocking out the trash talk of opponents, especially goalkeepers, who subtly try to get under their skin in the seconds leading up to a penalty. Extensive research can be carried out by data-rich backroom staff to help with preparation. And behind all this is the recognition that taking a penalty is a team effort, not an individual one.

This latter observation feels especially counter intuitive. There is nothing more lonely than the appearance of one man or woman taking the long walk from the centre circle to the penalty spot. But teams can support one another with words of encouragement and touch. Not just in the grasping of each other’s shoulders in the centre circle, but in reaching out to those who both score and miss. One reason Geir Jordet advises that the manager should choose penalty takers rather than look for volunteers is that they then can take full responsibility for the outcome. It is hard to believe there are still times when a manager looks around at players after extra time, hoping to see in the eyes who is up to the task. These duties should be sorted out in advance, with back-up plans for when players are injured or substituted.

Deciding war between opposing tribes based on an individual contest was quite common in the ancient world – effectively moving to the penalty shootout before the game, to save the effort.

Jordet, in his stimulating book Pressure: Lessons From The Psychology Of The Penalty Shoot Out says that anxiety is normal and should be embraced. Greater openness round mental wellbeing is allowing the modern professional to admit this. Erling Haarland, one of the world’s most accomplished goal scorers, has shared the fear he regularly feels round taking a penalty; it is hard to imagine a player from the 1970s saying the same.

Missing a penalty in the shootout is inevitable; the only way it can conclude. And statistics show that the world’s greatest players, like Lionel Messi, are not notably better at converting penalties than others. On average, the best players have around an eighty percent success rate (which, significantly, is one missed penalty out of five in a shootout). As in other professions, the best results are achieved by creating systems and cultures that can adapt quickly and honestly to errors and learn from them without humiliating those who fail.

Reading the book cast my mind back to the archetypal shootout between David and Goliath. Deciding war between opposing tribes based on an individual contest was quite common in the ancient world – effectively moving to the penalty shootout before the game, to save the effort. Perhaps David should have lost it, and not just because of his size. Beforehand, he had a serious bust up with his side and those who did not see him as a team player. Then Goliath trash talked him like Emi Martinez is famed for with Aston Villa and Argentina. And finally, he ran up to take his shot very quickly, without much reflection. But then again, Geir Jordet would be the first to point out that preparing badly for a contest does not mean you can’t win it – just that you are less likely to.

Football is a global language and the penalty shootout is like the cataclysmic end to a Shakespearian tragedy. English fans are long suffering audiences of this trauma – from Italia 90 to Wembley 2021, via the 1996 Euros when football was coming home until a last minute wrong turning. But many other nations have under-achieved at penalties, like Holland and Spain and, more recently, France. Roberto Baggio of Italy missed the decisive penalty in the first World Cup Final to go to penalties in 1994. He says of it:

‘I failed that time. Period. And it affected me for years. It was the worst moment of my career. I still dream about it.’.

The personal stakes are as high, if not higher, than the nation’s.

We are left with the feeling that hugely divergent outcomes can emerge from the smallest and most random of causes. The human tendency is then to rationalise the outcome in ways that make it seem inevitable. Geir Jordet is aware of this in football, but in other walks of life, we continue to build up wobbly cases on shallow evidence as a way of warding off anxiety or the fear that others will think we are clueless if we admit to the existence of chance. Most people are right less than eighty percent of the time; something we might hold in mind when the next England players make that solitary walk to the penalty spot.

Review

Books

Culture

Joy

Poetry

22 March 2024

5 min read

Theresa Lola's poetical hope

The death-haunted yet lyrical, joyful and moving poet for a new generation.

Jonathan Evens

Jonathan is Team Rector for Wickford and Runwell. He is co-author of The Secret Chord, and writes on the arts.

A poet stands and speaks, raising an arm.

Theresa Lola performs at Kings Place.

Cosmic Shambles Network.

There are poems such as T.S. Eliot's ‘Journey of the Magi’ and U.A. Fanthorpe's ‘BC – AD’ which have become staples of Christmas Carol services. Last Christmas, for the first time, I used Theresa Lola's ‘Look at the Revival’ as the poem in our Carol Service that explored the experience of the Magi in seeking and finding Jesus.

‘Look at the Revival’ was commissioned by National Gallery in 2020 in response to ‘The Adoration of Kings’ painting by Jan Gossaert. The poem is written in the voice of Balthazar, the Black King in the painting, and explores the painting’s themes of rupture, transformation and renewal. It ends with this reflection:

My job often feels like a hefty stone

But today I am powered by a fierce awe.

I say to the stunned people let us look deeply

to know this hope deeply.

British Nigerian poet and former Young People’s Laureate for London, Lola is the British equivalent of Amanda Gorman, whose poem ‘The Hill We Climb’ made such an impact at US President Joe Biden's inauguration. Lola said after that event that “To have poetry make national headlines … was just so exciting” and to have Gorman’s poem articulate everyone’s feelings “was just the perfect example of what poetry can do”.

There is a real art to writing poetry for public occasions where depth and immediacy need to intertwine. It is an art that Lola herself has mastered, as was demonstrated when she was commissioned by the Mayor of London’s Office to write and read a poem - ‘For Those Who Listen When Courage Calls’ - at the unveiling of Millicent Fawcett’s statue in Parliament Square.

Lola was joint-winner in 2018 of the Brunel International African Poetry Prize and was featured in the 2019 ‘Forces for Change’ issue of British Vogue as a next generation talent. Other commissions for her work, which explores themes of self-discovery, transformation, cultural heritage, and belonging, have included Selfridges, Rimowa, Royal Festival Hall, and Audible. She is currently leading the Volunteer Interpreter Programme at Dulwich Picture Gallery where, in a programme inspired by their Soulscapes exhibition, she is exploring how poetry can be used to interpret their collection.

“This poet speaks boldly of prayer as a call to arms for family, for love, for a survival, which as she concludes in the final poem, ‘Psalm 151’, ‘I prayed my fists into’”

S. Niroshini

Her debut poetry collection ‘In Search of Equilibrium’, which was hailed as “powerful and rigorous”, is an extraordinary, and exacting study of death and grieving. The reviews of this collection have much to say about the well springs of her work.

In this collection, as S. Niroshini writes, she “deftly deploys form, texture, and shape to interrogate the meaning of death and the suffering of family” with poems “variously presented as computer coding, live reportage, prayers, algorithms, Wikipedia entries and hip-hop lyrics”. While its subject matter is, as Carmina Masoliver notes, “essentially natural – life and death”, the poems themselves are often experimental and “bring in cultural elements … as well as religious allusions”. Charlie Hill explains that “This superb debut collection revolves around the death of the poet’s grandfather, whose Alzheimer’s resulted in a ‘four-year funeral’”. Laurie Smith suggests “It is rare for a debut collection by a young poet to be so death-haunted, but it is death-haunted in the same sense as [Sylvia] Plath’s ‘Ariel’ and [Anne] Sexton’s ‘To Bedlam and Part Way Back’.” He writes that “The comparison isn’t fanciful” as “Lola’s writing has a similar vividness and strength”.

Masoliver notes that “The collection is book-ended with Lola’s own prayer and psalm”. “From the first,” she suggests, “there is an expression of doubt about the poet’s faith, though holding onto it ‘even when I fear God might be a thin shadow’”. Yet, “By the time we get to the final poem, there is a loss of innocence to the reality of the world around us, but a certain strength that comes with ‘fighting darkness’”. Niroshini states that “This poet speaks boldly of prayer as a call to arms for family, for love, for a survival, which as she concludes in the final poem, ‘Psalm 151’, ‘I prayed my fists into’”.

Lola has said that “The writing of the collection was emotionally challenging as the poems touch on sensitive topics about death, faith, family and mental health.” For her, “writing poetry has been a ‘therapeutic tool’, a ‘healthy listening ear’ and a way to express her struggles, be they anxiety or … grief”. Nevertheless, she also says: “My poems always suggest and show hope no matter how gritty the subject is! I do write poems that are centred around my faith, and that hope in my faith is Jesus”.

Many reviewers note Lola’s ability to write lines, such as ‘sweeping me off my bones’, “that stop you dead”. Hannah Williams was particularly moved by lines from ‘Blessed Are the Mothers of a Dead Child’:

Blessed are the mothers of a dead child

for they manage to recover

after eating the fruit that grows

from planting your child’s casket in the ground.

Hill cites the final lines of the same poem:

My grandmother tries to celebrate the brief beauty of his breath.

She says what use is sweeping grief under the carpet

when you can blend it to find the drop of sanity that will flow from it.

to suggest that it is here that the equilibrium sought in the collection’s title is to be found.

The Sunday Times Style Magazine has described Lola as being among “the ranks of an exciting new wave of young female bards who are widening the appeal of poetry for a new generation”. As a result, the imminent prospect of a second collection from her is a particularly exciting prospect. Look out later in the year, then, for ‘Ceremony for the Nameless’ which is described as exploring the act of naming and its role in shaping our identities, our aspirations, what we carry and how we belong. In lyrical, joyful and moving poems, Lola will explore the ways our journey through life might require us to cast off old expectations – both others’ and our own – just as at other times it can bring us back, strangely and unexpectedly, to where we first began.

This returns us to Balthazar and his journey of discovery. So, as he states: “let us look deeply / to know this hope deeply.”