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.