Penalty Shootouts: Is the Team That Kicks First More Likely to Win?

Published 1 July 2026 · sports

In a World Cup, some of the most important matches are decided by a penalty shootout. When that moment comes, the captains want to win

In a World Cup, some of the most important matches are decided by a penalty shootout. When that moment comes, the captains want to win the coin toss to decide the order of the kicks. The reason is an old belief: that regardless of the skill of the shooter and the goalkeeper, the team that takes the first penalty kick is more likely to win. Most soccer players take this for granted, but the reasons behind this apparent advantage remain a subject of scientific debate.n While much of the strategic thinking around penalty kicks focuses on the order in which the players kick, it’s also important to note the psychological pressures as well. During this year’s World Cup, two of the first four round-of-32 matches—Paraguay’s win over Germany and Morocco’s defeat of the Netherlands—have been decided by these highly tense shootouts. For years, the prevailing explanation was psychological. According to this hypothesis, the team that takes the first penalty kick plays with less pressure, while the second team must constantly respond to avoid falling behind on the scoreboard.

That emotional burden ultimately affects the players’ performance. A study published in 2010 in the American Economic Review became the benchmark on the subject, reporting that teams that started the shootout won nearly 60 percent of the time, compared to 40 percent for those who took their penalty kicks second. However, as databases grew and more researchers began studying the phenomenon, that advantage began to diminish. Most subsequent studies do not dispute that psychological pressure exists on the team that shoots second; what they question is whether that pressure is sufficient to produce much of a difference in the probability of winning a shootout. 2026 FIFA World Cup Here’s WIRED’s complete guide to the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Studies published in 2012, 2019, 2023, 2024, and 2025 progressively reduced the estimated size of the advantage. The most comprehensive analysis to date, based on nearly 7,000 penalty shootouts and 74,000 shots, found no evidence that the team taking the first shot wins more often than the team taking the second.

Furthermore, the authors concluded that, if any advantage exists, it would be less than 1.8 percentage points—a much smaller difference than the much-discussed 60-40 split. A new group of researchers believes this question has been framed incorrectly. A recent study published in Football Studies suggests that, rather than asking whether there is an advantage to taking the first penalty kick, we should explain where that advantage might come from when it does occur. Their hypothesis holds that pressure remains the decisive factor but that not all high-pressure situations are the same. The key lies in distinguishing between penalty kicks where a miss immediately eliminates the team and those where a goal secures the victory. The study states that current soccer rules do not distribute moments of maximum pressure equally. The team that takes the second penalty kick faces situations where a miss means immediate elimination much more frequently, while opportunities to score and win are distributed differently as the shootout progresses.