The Mighty Pen: England writing their own story by shooting their way to the Semis!

“Resilience” is a word that has been used frequently to describe the performances and behaviours of England’s Men’s football team at Euro 2024 in Germany. Fans and football pundits have acknowledged the resilience perceived through the actions of Gareth Southgate and his players during the tournament so far, with examples ranging from a steadfast stoicism regarding tactics and team selection, to the last-gasp equalisers that act as a springboard for safe passage to the Quarter Finals. But it is England’s performance in last weekend’s penalty shootout against Switzerland that arguably showcases individual and collective resilience in a way that is observable to the watching millions.

Defined as “the ability to use personal qualities to withstand pressure”, resilience is a much-explored concept in sport psychology, and something which has been associated with peak athletic performance. So how might we identify resilience in action when reflecting on England’s penalty success against the Swiss?

Even before we acknowledge the outcome of the shootout, it could easily be argued that England’s penalty takers demonstrated incredible amounts of resilience by stepping up to take one of the five pressure spot-kicks. When we consider the psychological science behind the penalty kick, the players who put themselves forward to take a penalty for their country in the knock-out stages of a major tournament are choosing to approach a situation in which they are required to deal with high volumes of pressure. If not approached with conviction, this pressure (where a performer feels able to meet the demands of a challenging situation) can very quickly spill over into sensations of anxiety and stress (where the performer feels threatened and unable to meet the specific performance demands).

High-performance athletes can often engage in an internal arm-wrestle of "Challenge" vs "Threat" at critical moments, where physiological and psychological factors combine to either optimise or reduce the chances of success. In line with the above theory, we might conclude that Bukayo Saka demonstrated high levels of psychological resilience by dismissing his previous experience of an unsuccessful penalty kick in the final of Euro 2020, choosing instead to focus explicitly on the sense of confidence and trust he had in his technical ability to meet the demands of the penalty situation. While Saka himself alluded to some of this in his post-match interview, there are a host of individual, team, and environmental factors that can have a bearing on the outcome of any competitive duel, not just the football penalty kick.

Whatever is in store for the England team when they take on The Netherlands in their semi-final encounter on Wednesday evening, their demonstration of resilience last weekend represents a potentially powerful source of confidence that can help them “bring it home”.