LONDON They have been a reliably heartbreaking ritual of just about any international competition but national teams at this year's World Cup competition in South Africa could spare their fans any penalty shootout misery by heeding one simple piece of advice whatever you do, don't look at the goalie.

Ignoring the keeper minimises stress and allows the brain to process the best way to place the ball in a specific part of the goal, according to Greg Wood, a researcher at University of Exeter, England, who led a study of the psychology of penalty shootouts.

England, to take a case in point, have won just one of six penalty shootouts in major competitions and lost all three World Cup shootouts they participated. The team's appointed penalty taker, Frank Lampard, missed his last one, in a friendly with Japan.

Wood, a psychologist, said “When players are anxious, they're more likely to worry about the goalkeeper. There's a tight lock between where we look and where the shot or any actions tend to follow because you're looking more centrally, you're more likely to hit a central location, making it easier for the goalkeeper to save it.”

Psychologists already know that looking at something tends to shift your movements towards it. “If you're driving and looking to the right you tend to veer to the right,” said Wood.

People are naturally conditioned to focus on anything in the environment that they find threatening, and during a penalty the only thing that threatens the success of the player is the goalkeeper. “Our findings suggest we should try to ignore the goalkeeper and focus on where we are kicking the ball,” he said.

Goalkeepers, meanwhile, would do well to wave their arms or whatever else they can, within the rules, to distract penalty-takers if they want a better chance of keeping the ball from the net.

In his research paper, due to be published in the Journal of Sports Sciences, Wood cites the example of the Liverpool keeper Bruce Grobbelaar, who used the famous “spaghetti legs” technique to distract AS Roma players and help Liverpool win the 1984 European Cup.

“If the goalkeeper can make himself more threatening, he is likely to capture the attention of the kicker even further,” said Wood. In the 2005 European Cup final, Liverpool's goalkeeper, Jerzy Dudek, waved his arms so much during the penalty shootout that he managed to save three out of five of the shots.

In his experiments, Wood fitted 18 volunteers with eye-tracking equipment as they took a series of penalties. For some, the pressure for success was heightened by offering a cash prize for the most goals scored in the competition. On the other side, goalkeepers were asked either to remain stationary or to try to distract the kickers by waving their arms.

Afterwards they were asked to rate their anxiety level. When the penalty takers were most anxious, they tended to focus more on the keeper. The length of time their eyes fixed on him also increased if the keeper was distracting them.

When the kickers were anxious, 45 per cent of shots on target were saved. When they were calmer, that rate dropped to 20 per cent.

Wood's tips for penalty takers include staying as calm as possible. “I'd try to get them to take a penalty as they do in their normal training environment.”

Penalty takers could take comfort from the fact that they are in charge, he added. “Realise you're in control of the situation, the outcome is heavily in your favour.”—Dawn/The Guardian News Service