Why Penalty Shootouts Feel Unfair (But Aren't)

Few things in sport feel crueller than a penalty shootout. Two teams play for two hours, and then a World Cup or a European final is decided by a series of one-on-one kicks that look closer to a lottery than to football.

The feeling is understandable, and partly wrong. The shootout was invented to replace something much worse, and the research on who wins suggests skill and nerve matter more than luck, even if the first kick matters less than people once thought.

Better than a coin toss

Before penalty shootouts, drawn knockout matches were settled by replays or, when there was no time for one, by drawing lots or tossing a coin. The International Football Association Board adopted the shootout at its annual meeting on 27 June 1970, after FIFA's proposal was discussed in February that year. The German referee Karl Wald and the Israeli official Yosef Dagan are both credited with the idea.

The first shootout in professional English football came within weeks: Hull City against Manchester United in the Watney Cup semi-final on 5 August 1970. United won. Whatever its cruelty, the shootout at least lets players decide the result.

How it works

Each team takes five kicks, alternating, from the penalty mark. If one side builds a lead the other cannot overcome, the shootout ends early. If the teams are still level after five each, it goes to sudden death: one kick each until one scores and the other misses. The full rules are in our complete guide to football's rules.

The format makes every kick public and personal. There is no team-mate to hide behind, which is exactly why shootouts produce some of the sport's most famous images, of joy and of despair.

Famous shootouts

The first major international final decided on penalties was the 1976 European Championship final, which Czechoslovakia won 5-3 against West Germany after Antonín Panenka chipped the decisive kick gently down the middle, a style still named after him. The first shootout at a World Cup came in the 1982 semi-final, when West Germany beat France on 8 July 1982.

In 1994 the World Cup final itself went to penalties: after a goalless match and extra time, Brazil beat Italy 3-2 in the shootout. Italy's coach that day was Arrigo Sacchi, one of the great tactical minds of the era, a reminder that no plan survives a shootout intact.

Shootouts can also run far beyond five kicks each. At the 2023 Women's World Cup, Australia's quarter-final against France went to the longest shootout in the tournament's history before the co-hosts went through.

Does kicking first help?

For years the most quoted finding was that the team that kicks first wins about 60 percent of shootouts, reported by the economist Ignacio Palacios-Huerta. The idea was that the second team is always under more pressure, often needing to score just to stay alive.

Later work has been less dramatic. An analysis by the data company InStat of more than 2,000 shootouts found the first-kicking team won 51.48 percent of the time, barely better than a coin toss, and a 2024 study found no first-mover advantage at all in modern European football. In 2017 the rule-makers sanctioned trials of an alternative order, ABBA, borrowed from tennis tie-breaks, to remove any advantage.

The ABBA trial began at the European under-17 championships in May 2017; its first shootout was a women's semi-final between Germany and Norway, and it was used at the 2017 Community Shield on 6 August. On 22 November 2018 the rule-makers decided to drop it, citing a lack of strong support, mainly because the order was too complicated. Shootouts went back to taking turns.

The goalkeeper’s mind games

Research has also looked at the people in goal. A 2011 study in Psychological Science found that goalkeepers dived to their right 71 percent of the time when their team was losing the shootout, but only about half the time when level or ahead, suggesting that pressure pushes them towards a default.

Goalkeepers who distract or delay the taker seem to gain something too: distraction has been linked with about 10 percent fewer goals, and delaying with about 20 percent fewer. Kickers who rush their shot after a long wait are especially vulnerable, which is why coaches now drill routines for the walk from the halfway line.

Fairer than it feels

The shootout feels unfair because it compresses a whole match into a few seconds and puts the outcome on individuals. But the evidence says it rewards preparation, composure and goalkeeping skill, not just luck, and it is far fairer than the coin tosses it replaced.

Like other modern additions to the game, it is a compromise between drama and justice. For another rule designed to remove doubt from big moments, see how goal-line technology decides goals.