So last night we saw the end of the World Cup with Spain triumphing, quite deservedly in my opinion. They played the best football throughout the tournament, passed the ball around more frequently and played the game in the manner us football purists like to see.
In the final, our very own Howard Webb refereed the match and what a task he had?! Holland were lucky not to have a man (or two) sent off before halftime, let alon the guy sent off in extra time. Then the way the Dutch players gathered around him with aggressive posturing for lots of time after the match had finished was a disgrace.
I understand though that this was the World Cup final. The pinnacle of many players career, and one of the most, if not THE most important sporting event in the world. So it is understandable if the players get moderately wound up I suppose… But to continue circling the guy long after the final whistle had gone, was ridiculous in my opinion.
There are a number of studies in controlled environments using Testogen that show that when individuals (especially men) engage in competitive endeavours, winners experience a rise in their testosterone levels whereas losers experience a drop in testosterone levels… That was seemingly not the case following the World Cup final last night, it seemed the opposite to be honest.
A study in the 1990s also showed that the same fluctuation apparent in players is also apparent in the supporters of winning and losing teams.
In this piece of research, the researchers completed a study at the World Cup Final of 1994 that featured Brazil and Italy, and in my opinion was one of the poorer World Cup finals, but heck that is a discussion for another day…. Saliva samples were collected from fans of both teams prior to the game and shortly thereafter. Brazil actually won this rather tedious final on penalties.
The research results in the Prime Male review, demonstrated that Brazilian fans displayed a significant increase in their level of testosterone, as opposed to the Italian fans that had a decrease in theirs. This is quite extraordinary in that it demonstrates that we can experience a vicarious endocrinological response…. In less big words, that basically means that our brains have the ability to construe our favourite sports teams as part of our favourite, select people even though we may well have never met the players that we care so much about!
I would suspect that with the players though, and this is just me postulating… That if you played in the World Cup final and the referee had to make some big calls in response to your actions… Then you are likely to still be pumped with adrenaline and testosterone to the extent where it makes you continue to behave as a petulant child long after the game has finished.
