Football is one of the best imagined sports activities globally. The fun of the game is increased, especially by the numerous leagues and championships. The unsportsmanlike citizens of a country magically fall in love with football when they see their compatriots decked out in national colors determined to enthusiastically play for their homeland. The most succinct part of the soccer game that can break the hearts of soccer supporters and fans is the execution of a penalty kick. In fact, it is one of the most pressured situations that sometimes leaves an entire nation glued to a television screen. When a team has a chance to win through a penalty shootout and they lose, the pain that ensues is very excruciating. The resulting pain or blame usually falls on the player who took the penalty, the manager who selected the penalty taker, and sometimes the entire team. However, when a soccer team plays a soccer match and the team loses the match on penalties, who should bear the ultimate blame?
In general, penalty takers are ultimately to blame for missing penalty kicks. Angry fans take their anger out on the player, sometimes extending it to their innocent family members. Such was the case for recent Senegalese and Liverpool star Sadio Mane. After failing the most important penalty against Cameroon, angry supporters ransacked his house and that of his relatives, destroying his property and other belongings. As a result, his relatives had to seek refuge from the country’s security personnel for fear of losing their lives. A similar situation occurred in Ghana when the Black Stars captain failed to bury the game by scoring the last minute penalty against Uruguay to take the team to its first semi-final at the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The player and his family were booed, bitterly insulted and humiliated by some angry Ghanaian supporters. Unfortunately some players had to pay with their lives as happened to André Escobar of Colombia for scoring an own goal in the 1994 World Cup. a misunderstanding of the essence of sports activity.
Soccer, like any other sports game, is supposed to be a recreational activity. Its goal is to achieve unity between people and cultures. The competitive nature of the game demands that one team win and the other lose. This is part of the fundamentals of the game of soccer. Thus, when a team misses a penalty kick by one of its players, the blame should not be placed on the player, nor should it fall on anyone’s shoulder. Winners of penalty kicks are just lucky and lucky people. Scoring a penalty kick is not a criterion for evaluating a player’s football skills and experience. After all, some of the world’s greatest footballers of all time have missed important penalty kicks. Classic examples are Italy’s Roberto Baggio missing a decisive penalty at the 1994 World Cup, as well as France’s Michel Platini’s missed penalty against Brazil at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. Did the penalty kick failure of these iconic figures in the sporting game of soccer make them less talented or skilled in the game? Certainly not! It would be unfair and an act of treason on the part of supporters of teams and nations to rage against penalty takers, coaches or teams playing football as a whole.
It should be borne in mind that the players who missed the penalty kicks already have a personal fault that places a heavy burden on them. For example, Roberto Baggio still cannot forgive himself for the penalty kick he missed for the last two decades and more! Ghana captain Asamoah Gyan has vowed not to take penalty kicks as a result of the deep scar left on his heart by his missed penalty at the 2010 World Cup. of football should aggravate their pain with harmful actions against the life, personality, families and property of penalty takers, their coaches and their entire team?
Fans of the game must always remember to show the spirit of unity, solidarity and communalism to the entire team and support them through thick and thin. Of course, true and patriotic supporters of the sports game of soccer should rejoice with their teams when they win and, more importantly, cry with them, so to speak, when their teams lose. The pain and guilt resulting from the anguish of missing a penalty must be borne by everyone: the playing team and the supporters. This would help deepen the essence of the sporting game of soccer as a recreational activity aimed at fostering unity among the diverse people and cultures of the world.
