Last night we watched two footballing giants exit the World Cup on penalties. Germany were beaten by Paraguay after a penalty shoot out that saw 5 players fail to convert. Later it was the turn of the Netherlands to wrap up their 2026 World Cup journey against the African favourites Morocco again with 5 players missing from the spot.
What seems really simple when there is no pressure becomes the most difficult task to complete. The environment changes. The expectations and implications are elevated.
When brilliant footballers miss penalties at the World Cup, the easy explanation is often that they “couldn’t handle the pressure.” But that phrase is too simple. It risks turning a deeply human, scientifically understandable performance breakdown into a moral judgement.
In many cases, a missed penalty is evidence of something much more universal: under intense pressure, even highly trained human beings can lose access to the automaticity that normally makes them exceptional.
The penalty shootout is one of sport’s clearest laboratories for studying pressure. A player has practised the skill thousands of times. The distance is fixed. The ball is still. The task appears simple. Yet the psychological environment is extraordinary: national expectation, personal identity, public evaluation, irreversible consequences and, in modern football, instant global scrutiny. I have listened to countless interviews from players across sport who have faced those moments. The moment takes hold. Their thoughts go crazy. They tune into the noise ‘the crowd’ they feel like their body isn’t theirs.
Pressure changes the performance environment
One of the earliest ideas in performance psychology is that stress and arousal can improve performance, but only up to a point. The Yerkes-Dodson law, first developed in 1908, proposed that performance tends to improve as arousal increases, until arousal becomes excessive and performance begins to deteriorate.
This matters because pressure is not simply “bad.” Stress is absolutely necessary for each of us to reach our potential. A certain level of pressure can sharpen attention, increase energy and enhance commitment. The problem arises when pressure exceeds the individual’s capacity to regulate attention, emotion and physiology in that moment. At that point, the performer may no longer be responding to the task itself. They may be responding to the imagined consequences of failure.
I interviewed the wonderful Jim Loehr performance psychologist who helped me understand how the body and mind respond. (https://work-healthy.castos.com/episodes/how-to-release-the-energy-of-your-people) Jim coached tennis players to implement a fixed routine after they played a bad shot. He knew their shoulders would always tighten so the first thing they need to do was take a deep breath and roll their shoulders to release that tension.
Choking is not the same as lacking skill
In psychology, “choking under pressure” refers to a significant drop in performance in a situation where the performer is motivated to do well and has the ability to do so. Roy Baumeister’s early work on choking argued that increased self-consciousness can paradoxically disrupt skilled performance. Under pressure, people may begin monitoring themselves too closely, interfering with actions that would normally run automatically.
Later research developed this further. Beilock and Carr described the fragility of skilled performance under pressure, contrasting two major explanations: distraction theory and explicit monitoring theory. Distraction theory suggests that pressure consumes working memory with worries and task-irrelevant thoughts. Explicit monitoring theory suggests that pressure causes experts to consciously control movements that are normally automatic.
Both mechanisms are highly relevant to penalties.
A player may become distracted by consequences: “What if I miss?” “What will the media say?” “Will this define my career?” At the same time, they may begin consciously controlling technical details: foot placement, run-up length, body angle or striking mechanics. For a novice, conscious control can be useful. For an expert, it can be disruptive.
This is one of the great paradoxes of elite performance: the more important the moment becomes, the more tempting it is to think carefully about actions that are best executed with trust, rhythm and commitment.
The body also enters the conversation
Pressure is not only cognitive. It is physiological. Heart rate rises. Breathing changes. Muscle tension increases. Perceptual attention can narrow. Time may feel faster or slower. This is a concept I explored with Dr. Alan Watkins (https://work-healthy.castos.com/episodes/coherence-the-biology-of-performance-dr-alan-watkins)
The footballer is not simply “thinking under pressure”; they are performing inside an altered biological state.
This helps explain why telling someone to “just relax” or “calm down” is rarely useful. In high-stakes moments, the nervous system is already mobilised. The practical question is not whether pressure can be eliminated, but whether it can be channelled and controlled.
Penalties are psychological contests, not lotteries
Football researchers have argued that penalty shootouts are not merely random. Geir Jordet, one of the leading researchers on the psychology of penalties, has studied how pressure, preparation, routines, avoidance behaviour and team dynamics shape outcomes in shootouts. In recent commentary on World Cup penalties, Jordet describes the penalty shootout as a revealing case study in performance under pressure, not just a technical duel between kicker and goalkeeper.
This does not mean every penalty can be predicted. It means that psychological conditions influence the probability of success. A penalty is technical, tactical, emotional and social at the same time.
The player must execute a motor skill. They must make or maintain a decision. They must regulate attention. They must manage the goalkeeper’s behaviour. They must tolerate the crowd, the occasion and the future meaning of the outcome. In fact, what you will notice more recently is the games that goalkeepers play, they try to get into the heads of the players. When penalties are awarded during matches often a player will pretend to be the taker to let the goalkeeper play all their tricks only to be disappointed as the would be penalty taker hands the ball to the real penalty taker. Watch out for Emiliano Martínez from Argentina who is one of the best in the world at mind games.
That is a very complex human task disguised as a simple kick.
The key intervention: return to process
One of the most practical lessons from performance science is that under pressure, performers benefit from shifting attention away from outcome and back toward process.
A process focus does not mean ignoring the importance of the moment. It means identifying the small number of controllable actions that increase the chance of performing well.
In sport psychology, one widely used process tool is the pre-performance routine. A pre-performance routine is a consistent sequence of task-relevant thoughts and actions used before execution. Research indicates that such routines can support performance by stabilising attention, reducing distraction and increasing perceived control. A meta-analysis of pre-performance routines in sport found evidence that these routines can facilitate performance across low-pressure and pressurised conditions.
But it is truly near impossible to practice for pressure, even though my colleague in Greece, Spyros Kollas brings executive teams under water with limited oxygen to get as close as possible to what pressure feels like!!
For a penalty taker, that routine might include placing the ball, stepping back, breathing, looking at the target, using a cue word and committing to the strike.
For a leader, it might be pausing before a difficult conversation, naming the purpose, breathing slowly, choosing one key message and entering the room with clarity.
For a presenter, it might be grounding the feet, slowing the first sentence, making eye contact and focusing on service rather than self-protection.
The principle is the same: when the moment becomes emotionally loud, the routine gives attention somewhere useful to go.
A practical framework for high-pressure moments
The following five-step routine can be applied in sport, leadership and everyday performance:
- Breathe – Use one slow breath to reduce urgency and interrupt the spiral of threat-based thinking.
- Narrow attention – Identify the next controllable action. Not the result. Not the judgement of others. The next action.
- Use a cue word – Choose a simple word that connects you to the desired behaviour: “commit,” “smooth,” “clear,” etc.
- Accept pressure rather than fight it – The aim is not to feel calm. The aim is to act effectively while activated.
- Execute with commitment – Hesitation often increases cognitive load. Once the decision is made, the task is to act.
This is not a guarantee of success. Pressure will always contain uncertainty. But routines improve the conditions under which skill is expressed. As they say control the controllables.
The wider lesson
The missed penalty is painful because it is so visible. But the underlying phenomenon belongs to all of us.
People perform badly in interviews. They freeze in presentations. They overthink important conversations. They rush decisions under scrutiny. They make avoidable mistakes when the stakes feel personal.
The lesson is not that pressure exposes weakness. The lesson is that pressure changes the relationship between attention, emotion and skill.
The best performers are not those who never feel pressure. They are those who have trained a way back to the task.
In the end, elite performance is not the absence of fear, doubt or physiological arousal. It is the ability to remain connected to a trusted process when the consequences feel enormous.
That may be the real lesson of the penalty shootout.
Not that great players miss. But that even greatness needs structure when pressure arrives.
Those people who say ‘pressure is for tyres’ or who reconstruct the situation to be seen more positive by saying ‘pressure is a privilege’ really know that everybody fears those moments but if we can prepare for them, that gives us a better chance.
Failing that just pray!
