SANTA CLARA, Calif. — In advance of the 2026 World Cup, where dramatic penalty shootouts have already eliminated multiple contenders, the U.S. men’s national soccer team has used brainwave technology to help players practice penalty kicks.The shootouts are intense, packed with pressure and jeopardy. They end in either heartbreak or ecstasy. They can break even the most experienced stars and send teams like Germany and the Netherlands packing.So, beginning in January of 2025 and at every training camp since, the U.S. team’s staff worked with a German company, Neuro11, and equipped players with high-tech devices, then monitored their brain activity as they took penalties against a goalkeeper.The technology was part of a broader effort to find minor advantages that could yield major benefits at the World Cup, both in shootouts and on set pieces, including free kicks and corner kicks.The brainwave readings allowed staff to measure a player’s focus or concentration, and assess their optimal approach to a penalty, five players and head coach Mauricio Pochettino told The Athletic.“Everybody talks about being ‘in the zone,’ and having things slow down,” U.S. captain and defender Tim Ream said. The U.S. staff explained to players that they “can actually track these brainwaves and help you get into that zone, to be ready to take the penalties,” Ream added.Multiple players admitted that the technology “feels weird” or is “funny-looking.” The players would sit in chairs on the side of a training pitch while staffers outfitted them with a pack around their abdomen and patches on their head.Folarin Balogun tests out the USMNT’s penalty kick brainwave technology during training in Chester, Pa., in November 2025 (Henry Bushnell / The Athletic)“It just feels like they’re putting stuff where stuff shouldn’t be put,” midfielder Tanner Tessmann said in May.“You’ve got to stick things to your head and put this helmet on, and wires, and wear this kind of fanny pack thing,” midfielder Diego Luna said. “It was crazy.”But Luna — who, like Tessmann, was left off the World Cup roster after being with the USMNT for much of 2025 — said it “definitely” helped. “I’ve done it three times,” he noted back in May, “and each time I’ve finished more PKs.”So, how does it work?Players, equipped with the high-tech gear, step up to the penalty spot during or after training. Some sort of machine, monitored by a staffer, stands behind them. They hear a beeping sound, and sometimes there’s “a speaker with the sound (of a crowd), to kind of recreate the sensation that you have in the stadium,” wingback Sergiño Dest said.Ream also mentioned that staffers “use different things and try to throw you off.”Pochettino acknowledged Tuesday that “it’s impossible to replicate the emotional stress, and pressure, expectations” of an actual World Cup penalty shootout — which the U.S. men could experience for the first time on Wednesday in the round of 32 against Bosnia and Herzegovina. But the idea was to mimic it, then test the players.