Pressure tells as players put on the spot

The biggest surprise of Liverpool’s epic penalty shoot-out victory over Middlesbrough in Tuesday night’s Capital One Cup tie was not that the home side, who had a 60/40 advantage in the shoot-out before a ball was struck courtesy of kicking first, won, but that Middlesbrough pushed them so close.

While researching my book, Twelve Yards: The Art and Psychology of the Perfect Penalty, I learned that the conversion record for players taking penalties to avoid defeat in a shoot-out — the type of penalty Roberto Baggio famously missed in the 1994 World Cup final — drops from 74% to 64%, such are the negative connotations associated with the kick. In a World Cup competition, that figure drops to 44%, as was evident when Chile’s Mauricio Isla (against Brazil) and Costa Rica’s Michael Umana (against Holland) both missed their penalties to avoid defeat this year.

Middlesbrough had 11 such penalties at Anfield, and they scored from the first 10 of them. That in itself is an astonishing achievement.

The tension was so great at Anfield it was noticeable how few players celebrated after scoring.

Indeed, Liverpool’s Mamadou Sakho looked so miserable after converting his penalty that, had you not seen the spot-kick but just his walk back to the centre-circle, you’d have been convinced he had missed.

Celebrating helps: psychologists have proved there is an emotional contagion that lifts team-mates and deflates opponents if penalties are celebrated in a shoot-out. Witness Brazil’s emotional response to every converted spot-kick in their shoot-out against Chile.

It was a surprise that the only Liverpool players who celebrated were Lucas Leiva and Adam Lallana after their second penalties.

The quality of the penalties was extremely high, with Albert Adomah’s effort, penalty number 30, the only one missing the target.

Overall, the goalkeepers saved just two penalties out of the 30, with one missing the target, a conversion rate of 90% and well above average.

Could the goalkeepers have done more? Not necessarily. Liverpool’s Simon Mignolet grew into the shoot-out, diving the wrong way for six of the first seven penalties, but he also dived the correct way for four of the last five. Jamal Blackman faced 15 penalties and only dived the right way on six of them. A long way to go to match Petr Cech, his former team-mate at Chelsea, who guessed the correct way six times out of six in the 2012 Champions League final.