Why England’s Penalty Takers Were Never Going To Score: Their Body Language

According to a great book I have been reading recently called “People Watching” by Desmond Morris, sporting activities are essentially modified forms of hunting behaviour. Viewed biologically, the modern footballer is revealed as a member of a disguised hunting pack. His killing weapon has turned into a harmless football and his prey into a goal-mouth. If his aim is accurate and he scores a goal, he enjoys the hunter’s triumph of killing his prey.

Well, there’s an interesting take on it all eh?

For modern man, sport has become a major form of recreation. Almost every large human settlement in the world has its sports centres and stadiums. Millions follow the details of sporting activities in the press and on television.

Myself included.

This high level of interest today exceeds anything from previous eras in history.

This was going to be the year. This was it. Our greatest opportunity since 1966 for England to win the football World Cup. We had the talented players, it was being held in Europe and we had got to the quarter finals to play Portugal who had two of their best players out through suspension. We had to do it. We were as good as in the semi-finals. Surely?!! I was giddy with excitement.

Then it happened….

What a let down. I was let down yet again. We played rubbish. Then we had Wayne Rooney sent off, the 10 men played better, but it went to penalties.

In my lifetime I saw England win on penalties once! When Stuart Pearce scored the winner against Spain was one of the happiest days of my life, but this was abysmal…Yet again! The emotional roller coaster came to a sad end as it has done so many times before for us English “glutton for punishment” football fans.

Maybe it was the pressure they were under, but our players, who get paid many hundreds of thousands and millions of pounds as a result for being able to kick the ball well, just could not score penalties.

What’s more, the other team stepped up and confidently scored theirs!!

I am not just using this article to get this off my chest. I am telling you that I knew who was going to score and who wasn’t.

Their prospective success was being telegraphed as they walked up to take their penalty. All but one of the England players held their bodies in ways which showed what was going on inside of them. Most of them were seemingly terrified and subsequently took poor penalties.

They did not stand tall and proud, or move with confidence that the Portuguese players had and the way they took their penalties proved it.

Our body language does tell us lots about what is going on inside, but as I have mentioned in other articles, sometimes holding your body the right way can help you feel different.

The fact that you can tell if people feel confident or ready for action is something that can benefit us in business and our personal lives, so I wanted to write about one or two particularly interesting gestures and movements to help us all be more positive or know who else is.

How To Appear Confident And Display Bravery

To appear bigger for fighting or courting rituals, birds will fluff their feathers, fish can expand their body size by sucking in water and cats or dogs make their fur stand on end.

Us hairless people, however, no longer have a thick pelt to expand to make ourselves look more imposing when we are fearful, apprehensive or angry.

When we describe a scary movie we often say, “It made my hair stand on end”; if we become angry with someone, “He made the hackles on my neck rise”; and when we are smitten with someone, they can give us “goose bumps.” I love getting goose bumps by the way….

All these that I mention are the body’s mechanical reactions to circumstances in which we attempt to make ourselves appear larger and are caused by the erector pillae muscles on the skin, which we attempt to make our non-existent pelt stand up. Modern humans, however, have invented a gesture to help them achieve a bigger physical presence - the Hands on Hips gesture.

Yes indeed, the Hands-on-Hips gesture is used by the child arguing with a parent, the athlete waiting for their event to begin, the boxer waiting for the bout to start and males who want to issue a non-verbal challenge to other males who enter their territory. Last weekend, not one of the England penalty takers held their body as if they were ready for action when waiting to take their penalties. None of them had Hands-on-Hips that’s for sure.

In each of the above examples, the person takes the Hands-on-Hips pose and this is a universal gesture used to communicate that a person is ready for assertive action. It lets the person take up more space and has the threat value of the pointed elbows that act as weapons, preventing others from approaching or passing.

The arms being half raised show readiness for attack and this is the position taken by cowboys in a gunfight. Even one hand on the hip will send the intended message, particularly when it’s pointed at the intended victim. It’s used everywhere and in the Philippines and Malaysia it carries the even stronger message of anger or outrage.

Also known as the “readiness” gesture, that is, the person is ready for assertive action, its basic meaning carries a subtly aggressive attitude everywhere. It has also been called the achiever stance, related to the goal-directed person who is ready to tackle their objectives or is ready to take action on something. Men often use this gesture around women to display an assertive male attitude.

It’s important to consider the context and other body language immediately preceding the Hands-on-Hips pose in order to make an accurate assessment of the person’s attitude.

For example, is the coat open and pushed back on to the hips, or is it buttoned when the aggressive pose is taken? Closed-coat-readiness shows frustration, whereas coat open and pushed back is directly aggressive because the person is openly exposing their front in a display of fearlessness. This position is further reinforced by placing the feet evenly apart on the ground or by adding clenched fists to the gesture cluster.

These aggressive-readiness clusters are used by professional models to give the impression that their clothing is for the modern, assertive, forward-thinking woman. Occasionally the gesture may be done with only one hand on the hip and the other displaying another gesture and this is commonly used by women who want to draw attention to themselves by using this cluster with a pelvic tilt to emphasise their hips-to-waist ratio, which indicates fertility. Hands-on-Hips is regularly used by both women and men in courtship to draw attention to themselves.

Gestures That Show When A Person is Ready

I have watched replays of salespeople interviewing potential buyers that revealed that, whenever the seated readiness gesture followed a Chin-Stroke (decision-making), the client said “yes” to the proposal more than half the time. In contrast, if during the close of the sale the client took the arms-crossed position immediately after the chin-stroke, the sale was usually not made. The Seated Readiness gesture can also be taken by the angry person who is ready for something else - to throw you out. The preceding gesture clusters indicate the person’s real intentions.

The Starters Position

Readiness gestures that signal a desire to conclude a meeting include leaning forward with both hands on both knees, or leaning forward with both hands gripping the chair as if they were at the start of a race. If either of these occur during a conversation it would be wise for you to take the lead and resell, change direction or terminate the conversation.

So have a look at how you display yourself and hold your body in your workplace and the rest of your life and use posture to impress. Have some fun noticing the differences in the way others respond.