Penalty Shootout: Is The Starting Team Likely To Win?

In the country Cup, some of the most important matches are decided by penalty shootouts. When that time comes, the pilots want to win the money to decide on a strike plan. The reason is an old belief: regardless of the skill of the striker and the player, the team that takes the first penalty is the winner. Many footballers do not take this for granted, but the reasons behind this advantage are still a matter of scientific controversy

While most theories about goal kicking focus on how players kick, it’s also important to recognize the psychological issues involved. In this year World Cuptwo of the first four matches of the tournament of 32—Paraguay’s victory against Germany and Morocco’s defeat against the Netherlands—have been determined by this fierce shootout.

For many years, the explanations available were psychological. According to this theory, the team that scored the first goal it plays a little more aggressively, where the second team must constantly respond to keep from falling behind on the scoreboard. That stress affects the performance of the players. A study published in 2010 in the American Economic Review became a benchmark in this regard, stating that the teams that initiated the shooting won about 60 percent of the time, compared to 40 percent of those that shot the second time.

However, as secret archives grew and more researchers began to learn about the event, the chances began to diminish. Many subsequent studies do not deny that psychological stress exists on the group that shoots again; what he doubts is whether that pressure is enough to make a big difference in the possibility of winning a shootout.

Studies published in 2012, 2019, 2023, 2024, and 2025 gradually reduced the size of the opportunity. The complete analysis so far, based on nearly 7,000 penalty shots and 74,000 shots, they have found no evidence that the team taking the first shot wins more often than the team taking the second. Also, the authors concluded that, if there is a benefit, it would be less than 1.8 percent—a much smaller difference than the 60-40 split that is being discussed.

A new group of researchers believe that the question was formulated incorrectly. A recent study has been published in the Football lessons it shows that, instead of asking if there is an advantage to scoring first, we need to explain where that advantage can come from when it happens. Their theory says that pressure remains a key factor but that not all pressures are the same. The key lies in distinguishing between penalty kicks where a miss immediately eliminates the team and a goal that wins.

The research is currently underway ball laws do not distribute the most stressful moments equally. The team that will receive the second penalty faces situations where a miss means elimination most of the time, while the chances of getting and winning are distributed differently as the shootout continues.

The researchers found that penalty kicks where the goal was won were won 89.1 percent of the time. Conversely, when a miss meant immediate elimination, the success rate dropped to 60.4 percent. Importantly, they found that, when withdrawal and winning penalties were taken into account, whether a team took the first or second penalty did not explain a significant proportion of the observed performance. According to the authors, the apparent benefit of the first group does not come from the order of the beating but from the type of emotional experience that the order creates.

The authors argue that these differences may have methodological implications. If some players perform better than others, it may be worth saving them from the most successful penalties rather than placing them at the beginning of the shootout.