Learning from the De Gea penalty miss: How to bounce back

Imagine being in David de Gea’s shoes right now, unless you are perhaps not aware of what happened this week.

Manchester United played in the Europa League final against Villarreal this week and the United shot-stopper missed a crucial penalty taken by the last players on the pitch – the goalkeepers – late on in a penalty shoot-out to determine the winner.

The way De Gea took the penalty has left doubt in the minds of fans and commentators as to whether it was a lack of commitment or perhaps some hidden agenda.

It also doesn’t look good that De Gea is Spanish, and United’s opponents happened to be Villarreal. Coincidence?

Watch the penalty here.

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— Kωαme Benαιαh???? (@kwamebenaiah) May 26, 2021

You build your entire career up and become rated at one point as the best keeper in the world, and all of sudden, your fantastic journey and achievements are clouded by your last game or last moment.

It also adds salt to the wounds that De Gea has not saved 36 consecutive penalties, and now the cherry on top is missing a penalty.

De Gea has the press, fans, his teammates, his future career and social media to deal with, let alone that inner voice that keeps telling him “You let the team, club and fans down.”

How does a 30-year-old keeper pick up the pieces from such a scenario?

It might seem like the end of his career to fans, or it might seem like there is no coming back, but one thing professionals are taught all too well, is how to deal with failure.

From a young, aspiring footballer to when they first break into the professional leagues, the road to the top is not golden – it is forged with blood, sweat and tears.

I am not saying the missed goal will not affect De Gea but being a professional player, he does have an advanced coping mechanism to deal with more failure than ordinary non-sporting people.

For significant losses, he might need a more comprehensive strategy though to bounce back quicker.

How to deal with adversity

1 Limited your emotions externally – there is a lot to process and deal with all at once, and the more you are in a public space, the more chaos will be added to your confusion. Instead, take your emotions to a safe place around people you can trust.

2 Talk and dissect – talking about what happens, but limiting your ability to become emotional about the situation helps to process and rationalise better.  Replaying and breaking down crucial moments into small frames helps pinpoint areas you perhaps can work on or could have done better.

Either way, your next practice session will include the scenario, and you will improve it. This is a mindset of a champion. Feel the pain of failure but spend your time working on your game.

3 Be positive – Sir Alex Ferguson made explaining poor past performances part of his team analysis. He did this to help weed out a culture of negative mindsets and instill a positive attitude and ensure accountability and a will to  improve each performance. Change your mindset, focus on what you can control.

4 Learn problem solving – you can moan and whine and blame the world, or you can take the same energy and learn to problem-solve. The quicker you solve the problem, the faster you level up in your career.

5 Don’t be afraid of failure – without failure, you don’t have the opportunity to learn or do things differently. No-one has the success recipe; otherwise everyone would be successful.

Because you don’t have the formula to be the best, it requires you to experiment and take risks – some work, some don’t, but don’t fear failure and make sure you capitalise for next time by learning from it.

6 When in doubt, seek professional help – see a sports psychologist, a person who can make sense of it, help you process it and then build coping mechanisms and fine-tune a winning mindset.

7 Keep moving – this is a powerful statement because when you feel down, injured or situationally depressed, that is the last thing you feel like doing. Focus on keeping busy and following routine.

The more active you are, the less time you have to feel sorry for yourself and fill your mind with unnecessary negative thoughts.