How to win a World Cup penalty shootout

June 28, 2026 No Comments

How to win a World Cup penalty shootoutByEmlyn BegleyBBC Sport journalistPublished5 minutes agoThe World Cup is entering the knockout stages – which means penalty shootouts are back.The 2022 tournament had a record five shootouts – and with an extra round in 2026, the last 32, there is a good chance that gets broken again.So what have we learned from the 320 spot-kicks taken across 35 penalty shootouts since 1982?BBC Sport and Opta have taken a look to see what we can expect this summer.An Englishman’s guide to penalty shootouts

2 July 2018

Which countries fare best and worst?

England had missed more World Cup shootout penalties than any other nation – eight – until Spain took the unwanted crown in 2022.

La Roja missed all three kicks in the last 16 against Morocco to take their total to nine.

Spain have now lost four shootouts (out of five), which takes them past several countries on three including England.

The most successful country is, by some margin, Argentina – who have won six of their seven including in the final in Qatar.

Germany (who have scored 17 out of 18 kicks) and Croatia both won an impressive four out of four, while Japan, Mexico and Romania have lost two out of two.

The countries to score every kick are Belgium, South Korea and Paraguay (five out of five each) and only Switzerland (zero out of three) have missed all theirs.

Who are the individual shootout kings?

Lionel Messi celebrates his World Cup final shootout penalty against France — Image caption,

Lionel Messi took seven penalties at the 2022 World Cup – five during games and two in shootouts – missing one

Only two players have scored penalties in three different World Cup penalty shootouts before – Argentina’s Lionel Messi and Croatia’s Luka Modric – who both have a 100% success rate.

One of Messi’s came in the 2022 final against France.

Some 23 players netted two out of two, while Italy’s Roberto Baggio scored two out of three… but the one he missed was the crucial kick in the 1994 final.

There must be something in the water in Zadar because Modric and two of the four goalkeepers to save the most World Cup shootout penalties are from Croatia’s fifth largest city.

Danijel Subasic (all in 2018) and Dominik Livakovic (all in 2022) have both saved four spot-kicks in World Cup shootouts (from 10 and eight faced respectively).

West Germany’s Harald Schumacher (faced nine) and Argentina’s Sergio Goycochea (faced 10) have also saved four.

Subasic and Livakovic are two of the only keepers, along with Portugal’s Ricardo, to save three in one shootout.

Ricardo has the highest percentage save record, with 75%, having only faced four spot-kicks.

It’s not all about saves – with Argentina’s Emiliano Martinez only stopping one penalty against France in the 2022 final, but some of his mind games seemed to put French players off.

Going central is a bad idea

Players who pick a side have a better chance of scoring than those who go down the middle – whether that is a Panenka, rolling a kick along the floor or just hitting it as hard as you can and hoping.

Of those players to put their kick to the right, 72.4% have scored, with 71.1% netting when they go left – and only 61.6% succeeding with a central kick.

There are actually fewer penalties saved down the middle (19.2% compared with 22.6% by players who pick a side).

But 19.2% of central kicks miss the target (including hitting the woodwork) compared with only 5.7% of shots to either side.

Does the order of the kicks matter?

There is no obvious advantage to the team going first or second – winning 17 and 18 shootouts respectively.

It is probably not surprising that the players who go first for each team have the best success rate of scoring – 72.9%.

It only drops slightly for the second and third round of takers – 71.5% each. The fourth round of takers net 64.2% of their kicks, with it rising to 66.7% for the fifth.

Only two shootouts have gone to sudden death – with a 50% hit rate of the four players taking the sixth penalties – and none have gone beyond that.

The least successful taker (outside of sudden death) is the player who goes eighth overall – ie the second kicker in the fourth round of kicks – who only scores 59.4% of the time.

There must be a reason for that – perhaps the pressure of keeping their team in it before the final round of kicks – because the same is true of European Championship shootouts.

Strikers hit the spot

As you’d expect, forwards have the best success rate in World Cup penalty shootouts – 75% (out of 100).

Midfielders have netted 67.9% of theirs (out of 140), with defenders scoring 65% of the time (out of 80).

No goalkeeper has taken one yet at the World Cup, largely because mavericks like Jose Luis Chilavert, Rogerio Ceni and Hans-Jorg Butt haven’t been involved in any – and no shootouts have gone past the sixth round of kicks.

There is no noteworthy difference between the success rates of right-footed players (69.5%) and lefties (68.8%). However, exactly 80% of penalties have been taken with the right foot.

Do subs for the shootout work?

It is impossible to gauge exactly who has only come on for a penalty shootout.

But if we take those who come on for the final five minutes of injury time, there are only five (three of which were in 2022) – and only two of those scored.

Paulo Dybala came on in injury time at the end of the 2022 final and scored in Argentina’s shootout win over France.

In Morocco’s last-16 win over Spain, both sides brought on players in the final two minutes – Badr Benoun and Pablo Sarabia – and the pair missed.

England’s Jamie Carragher came on with two minutes to go against Portugal in the 2006 quarter-final and saw his kick saved by Ricardo, having initially netted but being ordered to retake as the whistle had not been blown yet.

And the other was back in 1986 with West Germany’s late sub Pierre Littbarski netting in a quarter-final win over Mexico.

One goalkeeper has come on in the closing stages of a World Cup game with penalties in mind.

The Netherlands’ Tim Krul came on in the 121st minute against Costa Rica in the 2014 quarter-finals – and saved two penalties in his country’s win.

He remained an unused substitute in the next round – when it again went to penalties – and the Dutch went out with Jasper Cillessen not saving any kicks.