Why Ronaldo Watched and Waited - Wall Street Journal (blog)

By Carl Bialik

Cristiano Ronaldo scored an astounding 59 goals for Real Madrid, the La Liga champions, in its three main competitions last season, including 14 on penalty kicks. For Portugal, he'd scored three of the side's six goals in the Euros this month, tied for the most of any player in the competition. He'd reached six goals at Euros in his career, tied for most of any Portuguese player at the competition. And in the 120 minutes of play before penalty kicks decided Portugal's semifinal against Spain on Wednesday, Ronaldo had taken about half of Portugal's shots, and many of their corners from the most dangerous positions on the field.

Then came penalties. And in a strange twist, Ronaldo — who in one stretch of his Real Madrid career made 26 of 27 PKs — waited, and watched, as Portugal took the lead with a save by goalkeeper Rui Patrício. Then they lost, as two of its penalty takers failed to score, one saved by Spain goalkeeper Iker Casillas, another hitting the crossbar. Ronaldo never got to kick. "From talisman to spare part in nine kicks of the ball," the Daily Mail called it.

In a stranger twist, two researchers who have studied the strategy of penalty kicks say Portugal manager Paulo Bento wasn't all wrong to save Ronaldo for the fifth kick. "These later kicks are the ones that are likely to result in your team either winning or losing the match," said Greg Wood, a researcher in performance psychology at the University of Exeter. "Therefore, these kicks have a great deal of added pressure for which your best kickers should feel most confident in handling."

Wood, who co-wrote a study finding that anxiety had a huge negative influence on university-level players, also coaches a local youth team. When its games go to PKs, he typically has his best kicker shoot fourth. Only the first three are guaranteed to get a chance in best-of-five penalty shootouts, but if the best kicker is placed third in the order, "then if he scores, then someone (not your best taker) with definitely go after him," Wood says. (That assumes the kick by the third man in the lineup didn't clinch a 3-0 win.)

Geir Jordet, a professor at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, also saw the logic of Bento's decision, noting that "the later shots in a penalty shootout (such as shot No. 4, No. 5, and definitely shot No. 6 and on) for a team are the most stressful shots, and thus shots where we see fewer goals." In other words, the best takers may be more useful there. Jordet, who has studied stress and its effect on penalties, tends to side with Wood's youth-coaching strategy: "Shot No. 4 is almost always a high-pressure shot, where many players fail. To wait with your best player to No. 5 may not be the best option as this shot sometimes is not used, as last night."

The bigger question, Jordet said, is whether Ronaldo would have been Portugal's best penalty taker. "Even though Ronaldo is an excellent penalty taker under normal conditions," he said, "his record in major penalty shootouts has been terrible since 2008, where he has missed twice in the Champions League," referring to the 2008 final and 2012 semifinal.

That's a typical trend for players once they are labeled superstars, Jordet said, citing a study he'd conducted on the topic. Players who shoot in a penalty shootout after winning a major international individual award connect on 65% of those shots, whereas those who go on to win such awards are successful earlier in their careers on 89% of PKs. Some of that could be a result of regression to the mean — they won the awards in part because of flukily high rates of penalty conversion — or a reflection of the tougher competition players face as they are recognized for their skills and move on to better clubs or move later in the penalty lineup. But it could also show that superstars aren't always super penalty takers.

In any case, were Jordet coaching Portugal, he would have placed Ronaldo second or third — but not because he's best. Jordet would have put his best bet fourth. And unlike Bento, he would have told his players the lineup immediately.

Wood's co-author Mark Wilson, though, said Portugal's best penalty taker should go first, or at least early in the lineup, to guarantee he gets to kick. Wilson, a senior lecturer in cognitive sport psychology and visuomotor control at Exeter, watched the end of the game, as did the other two, and he was surprised not to see Ronaldo get a shot. "The penalty shootout is a pressure situation where the pressure builds," Wilson said. "If you can keep scoring, this puts pressure on the other team."