Stress, Coping, and Emotions on the World Stage: The Experience of Participating in a Major Soccer Tournament Penalty Shootout

This study was designed to capture the first-hand experiences of stressors, coping, and emotions that elite professional soccer players have during a major soccer penalty shootout. Eight players who each took part in an important European Championships penalty shootout were interviewed. The results showed that the experience of stressors, coping, and emotions changed extensively throughout the event. Moreover, the participants experienced a series of different stressors, some of which were specific to the penalty shootout, and they employed a variety of coping strategies. Anxiety was the most common emotion. Practitioners can use these results to help design valid simulation protocols. All you need to do is walk fifty yards, take a penalty and score. That's the worst part of it, that bloody walk from the halfway line. Why do they make you stand there, so far away? God only knows which masochist decided that. It is clearly someone who has never been in this nerve-jangling position because it heightens the tension to an unbelievable degree. (Stuart Pearce, 2000, p. 3