Have you ever experienced the frustration of wanting to focus on something and not being able to, because your mind goes all over the place and you can’t bring it back, to the idea, action or feeling you wanted to experience.
I would say, that you should not worry too much when this happens. Getting distracted is in fact a very common experience and common to all people. However, there are times when we pay too high a price for a simple distraction. Let’s think, for example, of Paris Saint Germain goalkeeper Gigi Donnarumma, who against Real Madrid made a pass that crossed the entire length of the goal he was defending and on which an opposing player swooped with ease and put it in the net.
Probably Donnarumma had never made a mistake like that before, but he was distracted and so he did the wrong thing at the wrong time. You will say that one of the best goalkeepers in the world should not make such serious mistakes due to superficiality. Instead, as we have seen it is possible.
So, even in such experienced people distractions are always lurking and the greater the importance of the situation the more serious will be the effect of the error. Donnarumma, obviously, knows well that these mistakes should never happen but awareness is not enough to avoid them. His explanation of the error was aimed at convincing the referee that he had suffered a foul that hindered his referral. In essence, an attempt to shift the focus from the superficiality with which he had dealt with that action. In a match, superficiality is synonymous with a lack of respect for the opponent, which leads to give little attention to what is really happening in those moments.
In those moments, the player is distracted for several reasons including underestimating the threat posed by the opponent and the mistake, in the belief that everything will be fine.
Instead, a goal was scored by Real Madrid and this also led to the simultaneous conviction of the Spaniards to be able to win and to the depressive reaction of PSG, which was unable to regain its lost confidence, due to a distraction of one of its players. As teenagers playing tennis say about an opponent, when because of one lost point they lose many others in a consecutive way, PSG has melted.
