It can be hard to identify choking unless you really know a person’s body language or usual style of play. And the word is used too much. I’ve personally choked at things before, but othertimes you just suck but there’s no mental component where you feel the pressure (although it can turn into a choke if you try to shake it off but can’t as you realize what’s happening). Even the best free throw shooters miss 7% of the time. Miss in the first quarter, no one cares. Miss at a critical point, choke. Even if you didn’t actually choke.
Choking is a mental failure. Going 1/4 is a physical failure. Now the physical failure can be caused by a mental failure, but it also can be caused by ya know kicking poorly.
Going with there is no such thing is probably the safest option. I don’t think it is entirely accurate, but it is certainly better than trying to guess player’s mental states by watching them on T.V.
How’s that?
Team lost at the highest level can be reached by a women’s team. Choked? Or just not good enough. “Choked” would be getting beat embarrassingly in an earlier round. Hope this helps.
For the avoidance of doubt: the US team did great, as did the men’s team in the last proper World Cup.
Not having a lead in the first place. Not getting a second lead. Not scoring the dramatic goals that got them to the final.
There’s this notion that anybody who loses, if they’ve been previously determined to be “championship-caliber,” lost because they choked. That’s a fan thing, not a thing that happens on the field. “Choker” is this weird moral judgment that doesn’t mean you got beat, it means you actively gave the game away by being a coward or cowards. But shit. That was a good freaking team they played, whether they were recognized as one beforehand or not. If you want to say the three who missed their penalties were choking, I suppose you’re entitled. Maybe Lloyd only puts PKs over the bar when she’s afraid of the moment; I can’t really say. I’m inclined to say shit happens. Somebody loses when you go to PKs. Rewind time and play that match 100 times, and the US will win some and Japan will win some.
For me, this idea that the whole team buckled under pressure and only lost because they were too afraid to win, which is what I understand choking to mean (and I think I have as good a frame of reference on it as the rest of the people in the thread), just doesn’t match what I saw happening. Firing a rocket from the edge of the box that hits the crossbar or getting a cross in and redirecting it just wide or heading one just over on a ball from 50 yards out isn’t choking. They’re missed chances, and it’s fair to criticize them as such. I just don’t see how we can say fear of pressure had anything to do with it. Japan’s out there playing, too, and yet the ball kept getting onto US feet one way or another.
Wow, that’s… not at all what I think of when I think of choking. Why would anyone ever think that?
Choking is just having the ability and opportunity to win and not doing it due to the pressure. Absolutely nothing about being a coward. There’s absolutely no moral judgement there. Jesus.
But what is the “pressure” doing to cause the failure? What is the failure, if neither physical (they “have the ability”) nor of–well not, “morality,” exactly, in an ethical sense, but more like what Reggie Jackson used to describe as “character”?
I have heard “choked” used in two different contexts. One is as an excuse: “Yeah, they’re good. They just choked.” But the other does seem to imply a moral failing. “What the hell? You guys are better than this. How could you choke?” The whole point is to say they did something wrong, and how upset you are about it.
Whether you want to call either childish, I don’t know. I guess the perfect adult would just accept everything, and be unemotional about it. But where’s the fun in that?
I saw a lot of people use the “choke” word on twitter yesterday.
But the US team did not. I echo Jimmy Chitwood’s sentiments. This is just another example of using a sporting event to write a narrative.
Late equalisers are very common in football. That final wasn’t choking, it was just what happens so often in the game. Those calling it choking just aren’t very knowledgeable regarding the game.
Some of those calling it choking aren’t referring to either equalizer at all.
Lots of ad hominem in this thread.
I must have missed them under all the people referring to the equalisers.
Pointing out that those that seem to think letting in a late equaliser is choking don’t know much about football, as it is a very regular occurrence, is ad hominem now? You get those all the time with major championships, people that rarely see the game that see a couple and think they are an expert. See also: the mentalists that think the US threw the game.
To be absolutely clear, letting in a late equaliser (even a second one in extra time) doesn’t even register on the choke-o-meter when it comes to football. For choking you need the likes of Bayern Munich letting in two goals in injury time to lose the final of the 1999 Champions League final 2-1. THAT is choking.
How about now?
You mean the one post? Yeah, everyone is talking about the equalizers and not the penalties.
Call me “Han” Solo one more time…
85 percent of penalty kicks on goal score. That success rate would imply choking in this tournament.
I was under the impression that the thread was about the wider world. Someone has already mentioned Twitter, for example.
Do we have stats as to how good these players are at penalty kicks? 85% may go in, but maybe these players were just bad at it.
Remember also that most teams have one designated penalty taker. Penalty shootouts are more unusual, so that 85% (I am not aware of where the stat comes from) may well refer to penalties in general, which more often than not will be taken by someone that practices them daily. For all we know the US ladies may not have practiced at all.
That may sound insane to you, but England’s manager Glen Hoddle admitted that his 1998 England team did not practice penalties. They went out of the championship after losing a penalty shootout to Argentina.
They also missed some very clean shots during the game. They outplayed and outshot the Japanese team, but could not score very often. It was the most pressure packed game of their lives. Seems chokish to me.
If they did not practice penalty kicks ,then coaching sucks too.Penalty kicks determine if you win or lose . How much more important could they be?
I have definitely heard the term “choke” thrown around in reference to the US women’s soccer team on sports talk radio. I saw the final half hour or so of the game. Specifically, the penalty kick that sailed over the goal couldn’t be described as anything other than a choke.