All Alone

In NFL you win together, and you lose together. Every pass, every run, every block, everything is a joint effort.

In baseball a pitcher is completely on his own on the mound, but he's never alone on defense and he has fielders around him to get his ass out of the fire.

I guess in basketball you could conceivably get the last shot of the game (the infamous buzzer beater), but while definitely dramatic, it has to be a team-on-team exercise.

But the penalty shootout in soccer is where you can truly be alone. Nothing is more dramatic than failing to convert a penalty. Much like Ryan Donk did today against Ajax in the final of the Dutch Cup. All the weight of the team, the club, the fans, maybe even the nation, rests on the shooter's shoulders. And if you miss, it is you that has missed. It's just you against the keeper. No one else. No team mates to blame. No one there to pass back on.

Ironically in the shootout the shooter is in the firing line, not the other way around.

N.B.: showing just what a class roster AZ has, at the end of the game the entire group gathered round Donk, who was crying his eyes out. In a great show of support, they shared his grief with him.