MetCast Episode 28 - Euro 2020: How does anxiety affect players when taking penalties?

Manchester Metropolitan University Podcast

With the knockout stages of the UEFA European football championship kicking off on 26 June, in this episode, we will be exploring how anxiety can affect players who are called up to take penalties.

When we consider that the England national team has around a 30% success rate in penalty shootouts, this tells us that penalty success is not simply down to chance.

But what is it about the pressure of a penalty shootout that has such an impact on the performance of some of the best players in the world?

Well Dr Greg Wood, Senior Lecturer in Sport and Exercise Psychology from the Manchester Metropolitan University Institute of Sport says that anxiety can affect the performance of a player by impairing their visual focus.

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