Penalty Shootouts: Is the Team That Kicks First More Likely to Win?

In a World Cup, immoderate of the astir important matches are decided by a punishment shootout. When that infinitesimal comes, the captains privation to triumph the coin flip to determine the bid of the kicks. The crushed is an aged belief: that careless of the accomplishment of the shooter and the goalkeeper, the squad that takes the archetypal punishment footwear is much apt to win. Most shot players instrumentality this for granted, but the reasons down this evident vantage stay a taxable of technological debate.n

While overmuch of the strategical reasoning astir punishment kicks focuses connected the bid successful which the players kick, it’s besides important to enactment the intelligence pressures arsenic well. During this year’s World Cup, 2 of the archetypal 4 round-of-32 matches—Paraguay’s triumph implicit Germany and Morocco’s decision of the Netherlands—have been decided by these highly tense shootouts.

For years, the prevailing mentation was psychological. According to this hypothesis, the squad that takes the archetypal punishment footwear plays with little pressure, portion the 2nd squad indispensable perpetually respond to debar falling down connected the scoreboard. That affectional load yet affects the players’ performance. A survey published successful 2010 successful the American Economic Review became the benchmark connected the subject, reporting that teams that started the shootout won astir 60 percent of the time, compared to 40 percent for those who took their punishment kicks second.

However, arsenic databases grew and much researchers began studying the phenomenon, that vantage began to diminish. Most consequent studies bash not quality that intelligence unit exists connected the squad that shoots second; what they question is whether that unit is capable to nutrient overmuch of a quality successful the probability of winning a shootout.

Studies published successful 2012, 2019, 2023, 2024, and 2025 progressively reduced the estimated size of the advantage. The astir broad investigation to date, based connected astir 7,000 punishment shootouts and 74,000 shots, recovered nary grounds that the squad taking the archetypal changeable wins much often than the squad taking the second. Furthermore, the authors concluded that, if immoderate vantage exists, it would beryllium little than 1.8 percent points—a overmuch smaller quality than the much-discussed 60-40 split.

A caller radical of researchers believes this question has been framed incorrectly. A caller survey published successful Football Studies suggests that, alternatively than asking whether determination is an vantage to taking the archetypal punishment kick, we should explicate wherever that vantage mightiness travel from erstwhile it does occur. Their proposal holds that unit remains the decisive origin but that not each high-pressure situations are the same. The cardinal lies successful distinguishing betwixt punishment kicks wherever a miss instantly eliminates the squad and those wherever a extremity secures the victory.

The survey states that existent shot rules bash not administer moments of maximum unit equally. The squad that takes the 2nd punishment footwear faces situations wherever a miss means contiguous elimination overmuch much frequently, portion opportunities to people and triumph are distributed otherwise arsenic the shootout progresses.

The researchers recovered that punishment kicks wherever a extremity instantly secured triumph were palmy 89.1 percent of the time. In contrast, erstwhile a miss meant contiguous elimination, the occurrence complaint dropped to 60.4 percent. More importantly, they discovered that, erstwhile elimination and triumph penalties were taken into account, whether a squad took the archetypal oregon 2nd punishment nary longer explained a important information of the observed performance. According to the authors, the evident vantage of the archetypal squad does not stem from the bid of the kicks but alternatively from the benignant of intelligence situations that bid creates.

The authors reason that these differences could person strategical implications. If immoderate players grip utmost unit amended than others, it mightiness beryllium advisable to prevention them for those high-stakes punishment kicks alternatively than placing them astatine the opening of the shootout.