Fixed Penalty – A sporting Influence

[monster_magnet]

I had a thought whilst watching our English footballing fellas slide back, out of sight of the glory, again. I was contemplating the huge volumes of people passionately willing the footballers to score their penalties or kick it over the cross bar (*tsk*), damn that David Beckham.
Considering the recent reports about the positive power of prayer, wouldn’t the penalty shoot-out constitute a similar if more intense ‘positive prayer/thought’ exercise. Putting aside the religious aspects, the sheer numbers of people focussing on a specific outcome of each penalty would be astonishing and ’hopefully’ worthy of some debate.
One could argue that both the positive and the negative thought aimed at each player would cancel each other out but even so, the effect, if ‘measurable’ with prayer, should manifest itself somehow.
Your thoughts folks.

 

[Anonymous]

Record numbers of people in the UK watched the England v. Portugal match (was it something like 19 million?)...of those most of them wanted England to score and were willing the goals into the net....we lost.

If 19 million people couldn't provide enough psychic energy to do this then I'm puzzled......unless the Portugese have greater psychic eneregy...and now I'm rambling

 

[_Lizard23_]

Ahh but then there's the unwilled sabotage of knowing we always go out on penalty shoot-outs. Just wanting something isn't enough, you have to really believe it too ....

On a psychic level this is a big part of England's footballing problem in my opinion : tedious nostalgia, arrogant optimism, defeatist pessimism, the ugly spector of nationalism, the repuatation of hooliganism, the frequent recourse to cries of foul play and bad refereeing and the build-em-up-to-knock-em-down reputation games of the popular press all combine in such a way that pretty much no one can even *think* about the national team in a rational manner, let alone utilize their higher powers.

In many ways we could not possibly have won against Portugal, there were too many elements of the classic England defeat story in place - the fact we seemed to have a real chance, this time, the general air of confidence before the match, the rise of a new totem wunderkind and tears before bedtime, controvertial decisions and a disallowed goal, come-back after come-back, dragging out the agony, and the infamous penalties. We all know how it ends, no matter what we may be wishing for.

Plus, we all know *really wanting* something doesn't necessarily make it happen, even when we manage to raise a little 'chi' to send the will on it's way, otherwise *all* our masturbation fantasies would come true.

 

[chockfullahate]

maybe because bekcham had already missed one earlier in the tournament everyone was too half-hearted for them to send psychic help or whatever...

 

[Anonymous]

maybe he's just crap at penalties?

 

[chockfullahate]

crap all round.

 

[lopaka]

Well, truly, there are far too many variables to isolate the 'thought power' of the viewers/fans as a causal agent, don't you think?

At KorPan '02, Brad Friedel* saved two PK's, which is astonshing. While the dominant thing in the equation is the person taking the kick, and I'm sure there was some *luck* involved, and he's a talented guy to begin with, for 5 games he was the 2nd best GK in on the planet.

If one is using sport in PSI efforts, a better test might be one involving free-throw shooting in basketball at the end of a close game. There are enough attempts for each player's past to get a reasonable gauge on the shooter's true ability level and the basketball goal has no-one defending it. It's still problematic, but fewer things that can effect the outcome than in a soccer shootout.


* (BTW, where did he get that stoopid English accent from , not that English accents are stupid of course, but memo to Brad: you were born and raised in OHIO, for pete's sake!)

 

[monster_magnet]

A couple of questions:

a. If the vast amount of combined human will has absolutely no effect on the outcome of the event, are those wishing to influence the outcome doing 'it' wrong or there is no way to influence it on a psi level.

b. Given a controlled appropriate event, could the 19 million folk influence the result?

I'd rather not let this get bogged down in football, my interest was aroused in any supposed effect of 'mass will'.

Thanks for all you input so far chaps(esses)

 

[chockfullahate]

most teams win more games at home than away, so what is this homeground advantage?