In a world where competition for attention is becoming more and more radical, a football match keeps millions of people glued to a game for hours. This is only possible because football still tells the best stories.
Today, in particular, criticism of our Football Stars is not appropriate. But for this post to work, I have to start with it. Because, if I'm honest, I have little potential to identify with our heroes. I don't like the behavior of the Swiss Football Stars. Their answers to journalists' questions always have a defiant undertone. I expect professionals to let that go. If you can't take criticism, then you stay away from the stage. Even if Switzerland wins the European Championship title, I won't understand any better why people dye their hair blond for a football match. And, you won't find a flashy car at my home. These circumstances have made me suffer more with our Football Stars than ever before. My tension rose to unbearable levels yesterday. Unlike all of you, I even bet on a Swiss victory.
It is irrelevant for the tension of a story whether the audience can identify with the heroes.
You just need to understand what their bad and good qualities are. The more edges the heroes have, the more interesting they become. The criticisms and arguments in the run-up to the play only did the story good. So we had time to experience the actors. Every story is about people, so the more we know about them, the better. We don't have to look far for the mutual, unattainable destiantion in this European Championship story. This condition is given in football by the nature of the game. Only one out of 24 teams wins and we all want Switzerland to win. The invincible enemy interpreted his role flawlessly yesterday.
Just because the conditions for a good story are in place doesn't mean it will work.
For a person to focus on a story for 180 minutes, it takes much more than an empathetic relationship with the characters. "A whole is that which has a beginning, a middle and an end. This sentence was recorded by Aristotle in 335 BC and still provides the foundation of all storytelling. Every story consists of exposition, complication, climax, retardation, and resolution. This is still the most useful means to put the receiver into a rollercoaster of emotions. Scientifically, it means that from exposure to climax, the receiver must be put into increasing stress situations (cortisol release). The higher the cortisol level, the higher the dopamine that is released during the resolution.
In the exposition, the place, time, and characters are introduced. At this stage, Haris Seferovic's headed goal creates the exciting moment that gets the plot rolling. Fortunately for the story, Ricardo Rodriguez misses the penalty. This is the starting signal for the complication phase.
The enemy awakens and strikes, again and again, until the situation of our heroes seems hopeless.
Everyone prepares for tragedy. The heroes, however, undergo a transformation and decide on a turning point. With another headed goal by Haris Seferovic and the goal by Mario Gavranovic, the climax occurs. However, the story is not resolved and the end is still uncertain. In the retardation (extra time), the story splashes along. Not without one or two retarding moments (penalty shootout). No one will leave the story here. We all need to get rid of our cortisol levels. For this, a reasonable load of dopamine is necessary, which Yann Sommer gives us with his save as a resolution.
Literature sources :
Storytelling for companies, by Miriam Rupp
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