Winning the coin toss in a penalty shootout still looks like the safest small advantage a team can buy. Research cited in a new look at spot-kick strategy shows that the side taking the first penalty has often come out ahead, and that edge can matter when a knockout match turns into a sudden test of nerve.
The reason the search spikes now is simple: the World Cup’s knockout rounds can end with no winner on the field, only one in the shootout, and the 2022 World Cup final showed how quickly that can settle a title. Argentina and France finished level at three goals apiece before Argentina won 4-2 on penalties, a reminder that the next kick can outweigh almost everything that came before it.
The numbers behind that advantage are hard to ignore. Research on shootouts at major competitions between 1970 and 2003 found that the team taking the first penalty won 60.5% of the time. After the 2003 rule change that let the toss winner choose whether to go first or second, about 60% of teams that won the toss won the shootout, while teams that shot first won 51% of the time. The pattern is not perfect, but it is consistent enough to shape how coaches think when the referee sends everyone to the center circle.
That broad edge does not translate into one universal penalty script. In a 2020 paper in the International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport, Mikael Jamil and his colleagues examined more than 1,700 penalties across four seasons from 2015-16 to 2018-19 in the top men’s divisions in England, Spain, Germany and Italy. Their findings show that what works can depend on where the player is standing. Shots down the middle were statistically associated with successful penalties in the Premier League, while in La Liga the bottom-left and bottom-right corners were the hotspots for success.
The same study also found that technique matters, but not in the same way everywhere. A long run-up of more than six steps was associated with a successful penalty in all four leagues, and a medium run-up of two to five steps also worked everywhere except Italy. Short run-ups did not offer a significant advantage anywhere. Kicks taken with the inside of the foot were classified as placed shots, and those struck with the instep were classed as powerful shots. Both placement and power were associated with success in Spain, Italy and Germany, while in England only placement was significant. Placement was preferred in the Premier League and Serie A, power in La Liga and the Bundesliga, and Panenka-style chips were not significantly successful anywhere.
That split matters because it undercuts the idea of a single best method that can be lifted from one league and dropped into another. A 2002 paper had already suggested that shots at about 75% of maximum power produced the highest success, but the later league-by-league work shows that success is shaped by context as much as force. A team in a World Cup shootout may be able to claim the first kick and still need to decide whether its taker is better serving the moment with placement, power or a safer route through the middle.
For now, the clearest lesson is the simplest one: if a shootout is coming, winning the toss and going first still looks like the best starting point. The harder question is what a team does with that first kick when the data also says the best penalty is not the same everywhere.
