When a Goal Is Scored, the Fan’s Brain Goes Wild. That’s What Gets Us Hooked

Fan Emotions and the Brain. What Do Matches Do to Us?

Can being a fan actually change people? When Marta’s husband took his mother to a match together, the older woman was not happy. Her mood worsened when rivals of Marta’s beloved club scored a goal in the opening minutes of the game.

However, when the favourite team shot into the other goal and Marta’s side equalised, the woman hugged her disliked mother-in-law in a burst of euphoria. This is not an isolated incident. Millions of fans worldwide, in stadiums and in front of televisions, can react to a goal in ways they would not have considered just moments before. Why does this happen?

They Scanned the Brains of Football Fans

Dr. Francisco Zamorano from San Sebastian University decided to investigate this. With his team, he scanned the brains of 60 fans of two rival clubs from Chile over three years. Participants watched 63 goal sequences, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) registered every change inside their heads. The study’s results were recently published in the journal Radiology. What did they reveal?

Goal Scoring and the Reward Centre

When their favourite team scored against a rival, a true eruption of activity occurred in the fans’ brains’ reward system. The same areas that react to good food, sex, or drugs began to operate. The positive emotions associated with football are simply addictive.

The activity in this area was even greater when the goal was scored against a team the club had a traditional rivalry with. This highlights the role of fan emotions and the brain in strengthening the feeling of identification with the team and its supporters.

Losing a Goal Leads to Loss of Control

What happens after conceding a goal to a hated opponent proved even more interesting. Researchers observed the suppression of activity in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC). This area in the brain acts somewhat like a handbrake in a car—under normal conditions, it ensures that a person does not act too impulsively.

The higher the level of fanatical devotion to the team, the worse this area functioned after conceding a goal. Furthermore, the mentalisation network, the areas responsible for understanding the situation, also activated. It was almost as if the brain could not believe the goal loss and tried to rationally explain it.

From the Stadium to the Capitol

Zamorano does not hide the fact: studying football fans is an ethical and safe way to understand fanaticism in general.

“The same neural signal—reward amplification, control weakening under the influence of rivalry—is likely to generalise beyond sport to political and religious conflicts,” the scientist warns.

He cites the storming of the Capitol in the USA on January 6, 2021, as an example.

“Participants exhibited the classic signs of impaired cognitive control, exactly the kind our study showed in the reduced dACC activation,” the researcher says.

How to Calm Fan Emotions? The Brain Needs a Moment

The brain activity detected by the Chilean researchers in the context of watching a match is generally harmless. However, in political or religious situations, it can lead to increased polarisation and even violence. Can anything be done to counteract this?

According to Dr. Zamorano, “a brief cooling-off period or removal of the stimuli may allow the dACC control system to regain efficiency.” A break, a moment to breathe, stepping away from the source of the emotion—that may be enough for the brain’s braking system to re-engage. It is worth remembering this, not just during a surge of football emotions.

Read this article in Polish: Gdy pada gol, mózg kibica szaleje. To nas uzależnia