The UEFA Champions League 2021/22 season has officially concluded with the final match between Real Madrid and Liverpool last weekend. Once again, we witnessed Real Madrid crowned as the champions of Europe while Liverpool became the great runners-up.
However, there’s an even more familiar image that you often see during important matches: the sight of players crying. We saw Henderson, Firmino, Van Dijk, and even Salah in tears from the moment the match ended until they stepped up to receive their silver medals.
Liverpool players crying after losing to Real Madrid in the UEFA Champions League 2021/22 final
On the other side, Vinicius, Carvajal, Modric, and Marcelo of Real Madrid also broke down in tears despite being the victorious team. And do you remember when the Vietnam national team lost to the Chinese football team at the end of last year? A series of our players also shed tears.
It is said that football is an emotional sport. Yet, there seems to be something unsettling about the thought that players, who are typically unafraid of physical clashes on the field and serve as role models for masculinity, can also shed tears.
Of course, if you are a player, you would understand that sometimes tears just flow naturally. But to help fans, especially neutral spectators, comprehend these tears in football, let’s examine them through a scientific lens.
As Humans, We Cry
Crying is defined as the shedding of tears in response to an emotional state. It differs from tears that flow naturally as a reflex. You might be surprised to learn that there are three types of tears:
- Tears that lubricate the cornea, which are always being produced.
- Tears that flow as a reflex when your eyes are exposed to foreign particles or dirt that need to be washed away.
- Tears that occur when you genuinely cry due to emotions.
The third type of tears seems to be unique to humans. So if you see your pet dog or cat with watery eyes, it doesn’t necessarily mean they are sad. It’s just a trick of nature.
Real Madrid players crying after winning against Liverpool in the UEFA Champions League 2021/22 final.
Interestingly, even Charles Darwin, the father of evolution, once thought that animals cry when they are sad. He described the tears of a dying Indian elephant and recounted a macaque monkey at the London Zoo that could cry.
Modern biologists disagree with Darwin. They state that while all terrestrial animals can produce tears from their tear glands, the primary purpose of this reflex is to keep the eyes moist, lubricated, and clean.
Animals produce tears in two cases:
- First, basic tears are used to moisten and protect the cornea from drying out due to wind or high temperatures that evaporate water.
- Second, reflex tears are produced in larger quantities when their eyes are irritated by bright light, dust particles, or when foreign objects poke their eyes. Eating something too spicy or vomiting can also trigger reflex tears.
Kim A. Bard, a developmental psychologist at the University of Portsmouth, states that even the primates most closely related to us do not express emotions through tears. When they are sad or frightened, they typically whimper or scream but do not cry.
When it comes to emotional tears, we humans are the only species that expresses them.
Professor Ad Vingerhoets, a Dutch psychologist, agrees with this. He emphasizes in his book “Why Only Humans Cry: Unraveling the Mysteries of Tears“:
“When it comes to emotional tears, we humans are the only species that expresses them. All other mammals only emit cries of distress, such as when a young one is separated from its mother. Only humans cry.”
So Why Do We Cry?
Charles Darwin once claimed that emotional tears are “purposeless.” However, nearly 150 years later, modern scientists disagree with him.
According to Dr. Thomas Dixon, director of the Centre for the History of Emotions at the University of London: Crying seems to be a reflex that has evolved in humans. Infants in the past would tightly shut their eyes to protect this vital organ while they screamed for their mothers. This initial response is no different from that of primates like monkeys or chimpanzees.
“But in humans, tightly closing the eyes activates the endocrine glands, causing tears to flow. A silent process then gradually associates this response with all types of distress, leading us to cry,” Dixon explains.
Infants in the past would tightly shut their eyes to protect this vital organ while they screamed for their mothers.
Professor Vingerhoets adds that crying is not only an evolutionary response but also develops with age. For example, as you grow older, you tend to cry less.
Just as humans do not scream like apes and monkeys when they cry, adults do not cry out loud like children. Instead, they develop the ability to express emotions through tears.
In humans, tears have evolved into a form of close-range communication, allowing us to signal to others that we are vulnerable and in need of support.
This is also a key characteristic of our species. While other animals are born with fully developed bodies and survival skills, humans enter the world in a vulnerable newborn form, lacking the physical capacity to handle anything on their own.
Crying signals to yourself and others that there are significant issues temporarily beyond your ability to cope. And perhaps you need help.
Jonathan Rottenberg, an emotion researcher and psychology professor at the University of South Florida, states: “Crying signals to yourself and others that there are significant issues temporarily beyond your ability to cope. And perhaps you need help.“
In classic experiments, scientists showed volunteers images of the same face with and without tears. The results showed that faces with tears elicited more empathy and a willingness to help compared to the other images.
Tears Have Their Own Chemical Composition
Thus, the leading hypothesis explaining why we cry suggests that tears serve as a means to connect people, fostering empathy and support within our species.
To further substantiate this, scientists have found some evidence indicating that emotional tears differ from reflex tears, the kind you experience when cutting onions. This may help explain why crying conveys strong emotional signals to others.
William Frey, a chemist and author of the book “Crying: The Mystery of Tears“, collected tears from 42 women who cried due to emotional reasons and compared them with reflex tears from 61 other women.
The results showed that emotional tears contain enzymes, lipids, metabolites, and electrolytes. Notably, emotional tears have up to 21% more protein.
Emotional tears contain up to 21% more protein than tears produced when cutting onions.
Frey also discovered that emotional tears contain various other chemicals such as prolactin and adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), a stress hormone, and leucine enkephalin, a natural painkiller similar to morphine.
One hypothesis suggests that the higher protein content makes emotional tears thicker, allowing them to adhere to the skin more effectively and flow down the face more slowly, making them more noticeable to others.
Once again, this leads us back to the theory that crying is a signal to others that we are vulnerable and elicits empathy and a willingness to help.
Meanwhile, a less sentimental hypothesis focuses on the aspect of crying as a behavior to manipulate others. Professor Jonathan Rottenberg, an emotion researcher at the University of South Florida, states: “We soon learned that crying has a very powerful effect on others. It has a very strong disarming effect on anger.”
This is partly why he believes that tears are an essential element in the battle between those in love—especially when someone feels guilty and wants the other to forgive them.
Crying has a powerful effect on others. It can diffuse anger.
A study published in the journal Science suggests that women’s tears contain a substance that inhibits men’s sexual arousal. It can reduce male aggression. Even the tears of men have a similar effect.
Scientists have yet to identify which of the 160 molecules found in tears triggers this response, but it is evident that tears can manipulate the emotions of others.
Why do masculine soccer players cry?
After all the theories, one simple answer emerges: Soccer players are human too. Soccer is a sport filled with dramatic, emotional moments. It’s no surprise that players cry.
However, we want to delve deeper. Why do some players rarely cry while others are quicker to shed tears?
Why do some players rarely cry while others are quicker to shed tears?
In fact, this relates to a concept known as the crying threshold—defined as the moment when intense emotions trigger our tears.
This threshold varies from person to person. Some individuals with a low crying threshold may tear up at minor provocations, such as missing the bus or being teased by friends.
In contrast, those with a higher threshold may require a more significant event, such as the loss of a loved one, to evoke strong enough emotions to cry. These thresholds can also change throughout a person’s life or even within a single day.
For instance, physical exhaustion can make a person more prone to tears. This is especially true for a soccer player who has endured 90 minutes, sometimes 120 minutes, of intense gameplay followed by an emotionally charged penalty shootout.
But again, why does being more fatigued make players more likely to cry? And why do we sometimes cry simply because we are too sick or too tired?
The reason lies within our brains, where intense emotions activate what is known as the central autonomic network. This network consists of two parts: the sympathetic system (which triggers our fight-or-flight response when we perceive danger) and the parasympathetic system, which helps restore the body to a calm state.
Intense emotions activate the sympathetic part of this system, but when we cry, the parasympathetic part is activated, making us feel more at ease.
Physical exhaustion leads to reduced efficiency in the prefrontal cortex, resulting in poorer emotional regulation. This explains why a soccer player who has gone through 120 minutes of intense play and a penalty shootout often cries.
We are trained from a young age to control our emotions, suppressing physical expressions of negative emotions. For instance, crying while watching a sad movie is acceptable, but crying at work is often viewed as less acceptable.
The prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for our cognitive functions, also responds to emotional signals from the central autonomic network, helping us regulate our emotional responses in controlled ways.
The prefrontal cortex acts like the main processor of a computer, managing tasks to keep the system running smoothly. Unfortunately, as we become more stressed and fatigued, or if we endure prolonged physical or emotional pain, the sympathetic system remains activated.
At this point, the prefrontal cortex becomes overwhelmed, much like a computer running too many programs simultaneously. This reduces the effectiveness of the parasympathetic system, which regulates your emotions.
Consequently, being more fatigued lowers our crying threshold, affecting both masculine players and leading them to shed tears.
Vietnamese players cried in the match against the Chinese football team last year.
In summary, tears and the act of crying are a natural part of human activity. Tears serve various purposes, from a reflex that moistens the eyes to an emotional signal that elicits empathy.
As human beings, there is no reason to prevent masculine soccer players from shedding tears, especially when long matches have worn down their ability to regulate emotions.
In fact, those who do not cry are sometimes considered to have issues. Scientists have found that people who cry less are often poorer at social communication. They also tend to be more aggressive and easily angered than those who are quicker to tear up.
Therefore, there is no shame in being a masculine soccer player who cries. It is not contradictory at all, unless you live in a culture full of prejudices that equate tears with weakness and dictate that only women are allowed to cry.
