Why do footballers also take off their shirts after a win?

When faced with the good news, some people scream, others want to hit a hard surface. Footballers, on the other hand, seem addicted to the idea of take off the top shouting their joy for scoring or winning a match. As women’s football gains media exposure, we can also see a similar trend of expressions of joy among some players.

These footballers who strip naked to shout for victory

When Chloe Kelly scored England’s winning goal against Germany in the European Championship final, she was quick to take off her shirt. And the image was able to mark the spirits. Because we are not used to seeing athletic women who bare their bodies in a gesture of victory, without this being immediately hypersexualized. The footballer’s sports bra has certainly helped prevent such a drift, and on the contrary, allow us to perceive her as a powerful, action-packed woman.

A similar phenomenon could be observed in 1999, when American footballer Brandi Chastain secured her country’s second World Cup victory, with a decisive penalty against China, recalls The Guardian.

Post-victory striptease, tribal reflex?

In his book The football tribe (not translated in France), the British intellectual (especially as a zoologist …) Desmond Morris tried to understand this practice of post-victory stripping. According to him, this could be due to ancestral rites:

“With their fans roaring, dancing and cheering on the terraces, the Tribal Heroes celebrate their ‘murder’ in a frenzied explosion of jumping and hugging. It is a highlight of tribal life and we take full advantage of it, with all physical barriers have been lifted and all usual inhibitions have been swept away. “

Take off the top to remove a psychological burden

Interviewed by the media The independent, the German academic, body language specialist in football, Philip Furley adds another line of explanation. According to this Doctor of Sports Psychology, cand stripping is more likely to occur when victory was not at all assured and a situation of extreme stress preceded it. Taking off the top can therefore appear as a way to lighten herself, to take off a weight:

“Something falls in a psychological sense. It can also be an expression of relief. “

Showing the physicist behind the technical feat

Although female soccer players, like their male counterparts, risk a yellow card under world football regulations, this gesture can also represent an opportunity to show the physicist who allowed the technical featcomplete doctor of sports psychology Philip Furley, always with The independent :

“It shows how fit you are, that you have achieved something absolutely amazing. “

A way to show what kind of things we are heating up, behind the scenes of skill, but also to improve our physical capital. A gesture that we are used to finding banal or boastful in men, but which we are less used to seeing in women.

This partly explains why, even after taking off her jersey to slip into a sports bra, Chloe Kelly could look a lot more naked than many shirtless post-victory football players. But it’s time to get used to seeing women win everything.

A photo credit: Twitter screenshot.