Loris Karius' Costly Errors - a psychological perspective
Let's not cloud the facts. Real Madrid were reigning champions and were the bookies favourites to win the Champions League final against Liverpool FC in 2018. Real Madrid had the players, the money and the power to regularly contend for the champions league final. Liverpool on the other hand were coming from a lower base, albeit one where they were lighting up the premier league with some electric football. Despite being underdogs, they were fancied by many in the football world, as over 160 million viewers waited in anticipation of a cliff-hanger.
With their storied history and tradition in the competition, the city of Liverpool shut down as all stood in anticipation of long awaited glory. They could never have foreseen what would happen.
We have seen in the past where sports people were unable to hold it together in those "clutch" moments when the championship is on the line in a highly charged environment. Invariably, in such instances, players struggle to hold their nerve and execute basic skills to the best of their ability and they or their team pay the price with failure to perform to their potential when the need is at its greatest.
So what was going on in Karius' head?
The natural charge and emotion of such a high stakes competition can significantly impede the brain's processing skills. When one is anxious, a part of the brain (hippocampus) detects threat. The threat could be anything from fear of making a mistake or wrong decision or not being good enough and or manifestation of anxieties within.
The hippocampus is a complex brain structure, part of the limbic system, primarily known for its critical role in memory and learning, it is crucial for spatial navigation and emotional responses. When the threat is detected by the hippocampus, it triggers another part of the brain (amygdala - controls our animal instinct) to enlarge, resulting in one of 3 responses; (a)fight, (b)flight or (c)freeze. This results in elevated activation and undesired over-firing of the autonomic nervous system creating psycho-somatic stress. Our understanding is that psycho-somatic stress is when the body experiences elevated levels of both psychological stress and somatic stress where they lead to following experiences within the player:
Psychological stress symptoms
Sweaty Palms
Trembling hands
General Sweating
Hyper-ventilation
Increased need to use toilet
Dry throat
Increased heart rate
Nausea
Somatic stress symptoms
Worrisome thoughts about
winning or losing
crowd perceptions
player perceptions
coach perceptions
Lack of clear thinking
Inability to sleep
Poor decision making - Both on the ball and off the ball
When both psychological and somatic stress are elevated, the functioning of the autonomic nervous system goes into overdrive until information processing and decision making (1st goal) and basic skill execution (3rd goal) are significantly inhibited.
Psycho-somatic stress is something that is quite common in sport, especially in high stakes scenarios and takes the form of a mild unseen panic attack. Remember Jean De Velde at the British Open, Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth at Augusta, England football team and penalty shoot-outs at various major championships and Steven Gerrard's infamous slip – the list is endless as players struggle with the weight of expectation.
As long as Liverpool FC struggled to win titles, the weight of expectation grew and became a larger psychological hurdle and burden for others that followed. Their storied history, success starved fans and media frenzy that followed them when ever they got close to any title of significance didn't help and likely played a part in elevating the anxiety of the players - some of whom struggled to handle as we have seen on numerous occasions.
The bookies are rarely wrong and Real Madrid might have won the game irrespective of Karius' costly mistakes! However, enabling players to better manage the game, their emotional arousal and its various scenarios is as important as managing tactics and fitness because if it isn't right in your head, it cannot be right on the pitch.
All that said, afterwards, the question of concussion had been considered as a possible explanation due to a previous knock early in the game. The answers as of yet are unknown and only Karius and the medical people behind Liverpool know the actual true picture!
With Jurgen Klopp managing them, they returned the following year to the final to beat Tottenham Hotspur 2-0 in the final. Had they learned the lessons of the previous year?
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Keith Begley is a member of the Chartered Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences (CASES) and an Accredited Performance Psychology Consultant with the Irish Sport and Exercise Science Association ISESA.