World Cup research reveals strategy to give teams a penalty-shootout edge

One of football's most iconic moments – the penalty shootout – may be far more strategic than previously thought with new research challenging the notion that the team kicking first holds a major advantage.

University of Queensland researchers have analysed hundreds of elite international penalties and mathematically simulated millions of shootout scenarios to reveal teams can significantly improve their chances of winning by accurately identifying their best penalty takers under pressure and deploying them in the right order.

Professor Robbie Wilson, from UQ’s School of the Environment, said the study showed the psychological situations players faced during the shootout had the most impact on the result.

“Who shoots first matters but not in the way people think,” Professor Wilson said.

"Shooting first doesn't magically make players better penalty takers, but it does force the other team to confront more moments when a single mistake means the World Cup is over."

Although the researchers found teams kicking second were far more likely to face stressful ‘avoid-loss’ penalties – moments when a miss means immediate elimination – they were also more likely to experience moments when they were shooting for victory. 

In elite international football, only around 60 per cent of penalty kicks were converted when missing meant immediate elimination compared to almost 90 per cent when penalties could immediately win the shootout.

“There’s a belief that teams shooting second are disadvantaged because they are often behind on the scoreboard, but we weren’t convinced,” Professor Wilson said.

“What emerged is that teams shooting second experience more leverage moments, such as ‘score-to-win’ or ‘miss-to-lose’ scenarios.

“Because of the alternating structure, the second team is far more likely to face these high-pressure moments.”

The study also found the order of players taking penalty kicks could shift a team's chances of victory by more than 10 percentage points.

Teams that deployed their strongest strikers early consistently outperformed teams that delayed their best players until later rounds.

But there was an important twist: for the team shooting second, if a team's best penalty takers are also its most psychologically resilient players, the optimal strategy may be to save them for the highest-pressure moments later in the shootout.

“There’s evidence of both ‘choking’ under pressure and ‘stepping up’ in high-reward moments,” Professor Wilson said.

“But if your best players are also the most psychologically resilient, the strategy changes.

“If shooting first, order your penalty takers from best to worst.

“If shooting second, the results suggest placing your strongest, most psychologically resilient takers in positions 4 and 5.”

As the World Cup enters its knockout phase this week and with dreams potentially resting on a single kick, Professor Wilson said the research should raise questions for every nation still in the tournament.

“Managers can significantly influence penalty-shootout outcomes through careful selection and ordering, but only if they properly understand player capabilities,” he said.

“That includes both technical abilities, such as how accuracy affects power, and a player's psychological resilience.

“Without large datasets, it’s difficult to systematically identifying these traits and most decisions still rely on intuition.

“There’s a clear opportunity for teams to gain a competitive edge through better data, better modelling, and more strategic decision-making.”

Read the research in Football Studies.

Collaboration and acknowledgements