Barefoot on the field before the World Cup: the psychology of pre-game rituals.

Oh Hyeon-gyu walks barefoot on the field before every game. Then he scores the winning goal in his World Cup debut. What science really says about pre-game rituals — and why that journal written four years ago matters more than the ritual itself.

Fabio Zarra · Sports Psychologist · Sport Psychology Center · June 17, 2026

1. The episode

Guadalajara, June 12, 2026. South Korea–Czech Republic, first matchday of Group A of the 2026 World Cup. In the minutes before the warm-up, a Besiktas forward steps onto the pitch barefoot. Headphones on, team sweatshirt on, phone in hand—and bare feet on the grass. He advances and retreats, shimmying sideways, testing the divots. Then he returns to the locker room, puts on his shoes, rolls up the left hem of his shorts to mid-thigh, and tapes his right hand. Only then is he ready.

Oh Hyeon-gyu was 24 years old. That evening, he came off the bench in the 81st minute, replacing captain Son Heung-min, and two minutes later scored the decisive goal to make it 2-1, earning him three crucial points. The video of his barefoot ritual had already circulated on Korean social media: after the goal, it went viral worldwide.

He himself explained it to Korean TV station YTN: his "protocol" includes bare feet, rolled-up shorts, and a bandaged hand. He calls it "my secret, a method I've been using for years." But what exactly is he doing from a psychological standpoint?

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2. Pre-race rituals: not superstition, applied psychology

The scientific literature distinguishes between superstition—the belief in a nonexistent causal link between action and outcome—and pre-performance routine (PPR), defined as "a sequence of task-relevant thoughts and actions that the athlete systematically performs before performing a specific sporting skill" (Moran, 1996). The difference is not merely conceptual: it is operational.

A meta-analysis in the International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology quantified for the first time the overall effect of PPR on athletic performance, confirming a significant benefit across different sports (Rupprecht, Tran & Gröpel, 2022). Three mechanisms were identified:

1. Reduction of cognitive and somatic anxiety. Hazell, Cotterill & Hill (2014) demonstrated on semi-professional footballers that those who adopted an individualised PPR reported significantly lower levels of pre-match anxiety compared to the control group, with positive effects on measured performance.
2. Increased self-efficacy. PPR provides the athlete with a sense of control over the unpredictable environment of the competition, strengthening confidence in their ability to perform the required task (Cotterill et al., 2010; Bandura, 1997).
3. Increased self-efficacy. PPR provides the athlete with a sense of control over the unpredictable environment of the competition, strengthening confidence in their ability to perform the required task (Cotterill et al., 2010; Bandura, 1997).

Oh's barefoot ritual works on all three levels. It reduces somatic activation through direct contact with the ground, a proprioceptive stimulation that many athletes describe as "centering." It strengthens self-efficacy because it is a voluntary, repeated, and personally meaningful act. And it shifts attention from the external environment to one's own body and one's presence on the field.

3. The Ritual Placebo Mechanism: When Believing Is Enough

Damisch, Stoberock & Mussweiler (2010) conducted a series of experiments in Psychological Science showing how the activation of superstitious beliefs—saying "good luck," handing over a lucky charm, keeping one's fingers crossed—improved performance on motor, memory, and dexterity tasks. The mechanism identified was not magic, but perceived self-efficacy: believing one had an advantage increases confidence, which in turn increases persistence and the quality of performance.

It's important to note that the replicability of those specific experiments has been debated by the scientific community (Calin-Jageman & Caldwell, 2014). What remains solid, confirmed by decades of independent research, is the principle: when an athlete believes their ritual is effective, that belief produces real effects on the physiology of arousal and the quality of attention. The ritual doesn't "work" because it's magical. It works because the athlete has made it part of their identity as a performer.

Oh Hyeon-gyu is explicit: he doesn't talk about luck, he talks about "connecting" and "freeing yourself." It's a narrative of internal regulation, not external superstition. Research would prove him right: the most effective routines are individualized, rooted in the athlete's personal experience, not borrowed from outside (Cotterill, 2010).

4. The diary, the number 18 and the science of written goals

The barefoot ritual is the visual detail that captured the media. But the most psychologically charged story is another: a video from the Korean TV show You Quiz on the Block, which resurfaced viral immediately after the goal.

It was November 16, 2022, the day of the official South Korean national team photo at the World Cup in Qatar. Oh Hyeon-gyu was there as a training partner: not an official player. There was no number on his jersey. That evening, he wrote in his diary:

Next to those lines, he had drawn the number 18 and the words "2026 WORLD CUP" on his back. Four years later, he scored the winning goal wearing the number 18, making his official World Cup debut.

This is not a motivational anecdote. It is a precise example of what Peter Gollwitzer (1999) called an implementation intention: an "if-then" plan that specifies in advance when, where, and how a goal will be pursued. The written form is not an afterthought: it is the core of the mechanism.

Gollwitzer & Sheeran's (2006) meta-analysis of 94 independent studies quantified a mean effect of d = 0.65 for implementation intentions on goal achievement, a robust finding that spans many different domains. Writing a goal in a specific form—event + action + date—creates a highly accessible cognitive trace. When the event approaches, the brain recognizes it as the expected cue and automatically activates the planned behavior.

Oh didn't simply "dream" of returning. He specified: the number (18), the event (World Cup 2026), the modality (with pride). This structure is exactly what the literature indicates as predictive of success in goal pursuit.

5. Two levels, one strategy

The barefoot ritual and the 2022 diary seem like distinct phenomena. From a psychological perspective, they're two sides of the same self-regulation strategy: creating internal structure in an intrinsically chaotic environment like professional football.

The ritual operates in the short term: it takes the athlete from a state of high and diffuse activation to a focused and controlled state in the minutes before the race. The written goal operates in the long term: it provides a stable direction over a four-year career, filtering training decisions, club choices, and the management of defeats.

For a 21-year-old athlete who took to the pitch at Qatar 2022 without a number on his shirt, the question wasn't "how do I feel this week." It was: "Who do I want to be in four years?" The eight goals and two assists with Besiktas last season, the call-up, the goal on his World Cup debut: they are the answer.

6. What can we learn — at any level?

Oh Hyeon-gyu's story isn't limited to elite athletes. The principles he describes are applicable to any level of athletic practice:

• Build your own pre-race routine. It doesn't matter if it's bare feet or three deep breaths: what matters is that it's yours, repeatable, and intentional. Research suggests that the most effective routines are personalized, not borrowed from others (Cotterill, 2010).
• Write your goals specifically. "I want to improve" is an intention. "I want to wear the number 18 shirt for the national team by the 2026 World Cup" is an implementation intention. The difference in the likelihood of achievement is measurable (Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006).
• Turn shame into fuel. Oh didn't remove the negative emotion from the photo without a number. She wrote it down, acknowledged it, and converted it into a plan. It's an example of emotional reappraisal: not suppressing the emotion, but reinterpreting its meaning for growth (Gross, 1998).
• Respect the rituals of the athletes you coach. A ritual may seem bizarre from the outside. From the inside, it's a regulatory tool. The sports psychologist's job isn't to replace it with something "rational," but to understand what function it's serving and help the athlete make it more effective.

Scientific references

Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. Freeman.

Cotterill, S. T. (2010). Pre-performance routines in sport: current understanding and future directions. International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 3(2), 132–153. Pre-performance_routines_in_sport_Current_understanding_and_future_directions

Cotterill, S. T., Sanders, R., & Collins, D. (2010). Developing effective pre-performance routines in golf. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 22(1), 51–64.

Damisch, L., Stoberock, B., & Mussweiler, T. (2010). Keep your fingers crossed! How superstition improves performance. Psychological Science, 21(7), 1014–1020.

Gollwitzer, P. M. (1999). Implementation intentions: Strong effects of simple plans. American Psychologist, 54(7), 493–503.

Gollwitzer, P. M., & Sheeran, P. (2006). Implementation intentions and goal achievement: A meta-analysis of effects and processes. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 69–119.

Gross, J. J. (1998). Antecedent- and response-focused emotion regulation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(1), 224–237.

Hazell, J., Cotterill, S. T., & Hill, D. M. (2014). An exploration of pre-performance routines, self-efficacy, anxiety and performance in semi-professional soccer. European Journal of Sport Science, 14(6), 603–610.

Mesagno, C., & Mullane-Grant, T. (2010). A comparison of different pre-performance routines as possible choking interventions. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 22(3), 343–360.

Moran, A. P. (1996). The psychology of concentration in sport performers: A cognitive analysis. Taylor & Francis.

Rupprecht, A., Tran, U. S., & Gröpel, P. (2022). The effectiveness of pre-performance routines in sports: a meta-analysis. International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology.

Note on sources: The information on Oh Hyeon-gyu's ritual is taken from statements made by the athlete to Korean TV station YTN and reported by Fanpage.it and Eurosport.it (June 12, 2026). The contents of the 2022 diary were publicly shown on the program You Quiz on the Block and reported by multiple verifiable news sources.