Anxiety In Soccer

Identifying The Situations in which Soccer Goalkeepers are affected by Pressure and Anxiety

Stress, anxiety, and pressure are some important factors, which can affect the performance of soccer players in a negative way, if not controlled and managed. According to Weinberg and Gould (2011), stress as a significant inequality between demand and response ability, is defined in terms of which, it is not necessary that the demands have important consequences. Anxiety is an unpleasant emotion and it is usually described as having feelings of being nervous and worried. Pressure comes from the environment and how the athlete perceives those forces that eventually can affect his performance in a positive or negative way.

There is always some pressure

When a goalkeeper’s team has a low score in a soccer game, he feels more pressure compare to the other teammates because he is the one who has failed to stop the ball before the goal line. At this point, the goalkeeper is under tremendous pressure and he is constantly worried about the outcome of the game. Consequently, working memory is exhausted by, pressure and being worried instead of focusing on the task, that is continuing to defend and protect the goal. It is also at this point when choking under pressure occurs. Choking in Foundation of Sport and Exercise Psychology by Weinberg and Gould (2011) is described as the poor performance of an athlete under

It was hypothesized that the goalkeeper’s high stress is related to his weak cognition and the high pressure that he perceives during different situations and stages of the game. For example, if a team is ahead by two points in a soccer game, and there is not much time left until the end of the game, there is less pressure upon the goalkeeper but, if the difference in the scores is the same as mentioned but there is still thirty minutes left until the game comes to an end, there would be much more pressure on the goalkeeper. He needs to come up with different strategies to keep the same score and not let the ball pass the goal line.

Method

Participants

The participants were, one male soccer player from the California State University Northridge and, one male soccer player from the California State University Fullerton. The two participants were the goalkeepers of each team.

Materials

The match between the two soccer teams took place at the California State University’s soccer field. A notepad and a pen were used to record the observations throughout the game. The main focus was to observe the reaction of the two goalkeepers during the different periods of the match with high or low pressure and