Die Wichtigkeit des frühen Tors

Robert Green, der am Länderspiel-Wochenende unbeschäftigte West Ham-Goalkeeper, beschäftigt sich in seinem heutigen Artikel im Independent mit dem Einfluss der Zuschauer und der Atmosphäre im Stadion auf die Spieler. Besonders hebt er die Wichtigkeit eines "frühen Tors" für die Heimmannschaft hervor.
So ein frühes Tor ist heute sowohl England als auch Schottland gelungen: Die Schotten gingen gegen die Ukraine in der vierten Minute durch Derby County-Stürmer Kenny Miller 1:0 in Führung (Bild rechts, Pausenstand 2:1), die Engländer führten gegen Estland durch Shaun Wright-Phillips in der 11. Minute in Wembley mit 1:0 (Pausenstand 3:0).

Hier einige Auszüge aus dem Artikel von Robert Green:
Everyone in the team hopes for an early goal. This settles down a sometimes impatient crowd and dents the hopes of the opposition. Players feel the mood of a crowd rise and fall in the course of a match, this can reflect in their own temperament and play. The longer a game goes on goalless, the more the opposition believe in themselves, grow in stature and become more resolute in defence.
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On the other hand, being in a side that wins such a game is one of the best feelings in football. At West Ham we played at Arsenal and Manchester United at the end of last season and won both 1-0 after being written off by everyone but ourselves.
As a supposed lesser team, the key is to keep a clean sheet for the first 15 minutes, "ride the storm" as they say. At the Emirates in April Arsenal had a number of chances in the game's opening passages and you could feel the crowd's anticipation of a goal rising, feeling it would be "when" rather than "if". If they had scored early, I am fairly sure they would have got more.
After scoring just before half-time, such was the belief and determination in our side that even a team of Arsenal's quality found it difficult to find time and space near our goal. I remember players on the bench saying at the end of the game that they felt there had been a force field around our goal and six-yard box, such was our luck. At one corner I can remember saying to Freddie Ljungberg, now a team-mate but then with Arsenal, "Come on, you must score soon. This is getting silly". I don't think it helped ease their frustration.
My lasting memory of those games was leaving the pitch to a heroes' reception from our fans, then being applauded for our performance by the disappointed home fans who had booed their own team off.