The science of penalties: what the data says about shooting and saving

A penalty looks like the simplest play in football: one player, one goalkeeper and eleven metres. But behind it there's pressure, statistics and psychology. This is what we know about one of the plays that decides the most matches.

How many penalties go in?

In professional football about three out of four penalties are scored. The figure changes a little depending on the competition and on whether the penalty comes during the match or in a shoot-out, but it's always around 70% to 80%. In World Cup shoot-outs the rate tends to be somewhat lower, a sign that pressure matters.

Why the goalkeeper almost always dives

A study published in 2007 by Israeli researcher Michael Bar-Eli and his team analysed hundreds of penalties in top leagues. They found that goalkeepers dived to one side in more than 90% of cases, even though a significant share of shots went down the middle. By their calculations, staying put would have been the best choice more often than people thought.

The explanation they proposed is action bias: if the goalkeeper stays still and concedes down the middle, it looks like he did nothing; if he dives and concedes, at least he tried. People prefer to be wrong while doing something.

Is it better to shoot first?

Some research on shoot-outs found that the team shooting first wins somewhat more often, because the second taker often shoots under the pressure of being behind. Other studies with more data found a much smaller effect. What is clear is that the anxiety of having to score to avoid losing affects the taker.

To reduce that advantage, the ABBA system was tested, where the order alternates as in a tennis tie-break (A, B, B, A...). It was used in some youth competitions but was not adopted permanently.

The Panenka

In the 1976 European Championship final, Czechoslovakia and West Germany went to penalties. Czech player Antonín Panenka ran up and, instead of striking hard, chipped the ball softly down the middle while goalkeeper Sepp Maier dived to one side. That goal won the title for his country, and ever since that type of penalty has carried his name. It's the riskiest option: if the goalkeeper stays, the taker looks ridiculous.

Tips from specialists

• Decide before your run-up and don't change your mind.
• High shots close to a post are the hardest to save, but also the most likely to miss.
• For goalkeepers: studying the takers helps, and staying calm until the last moment forces the taker to commit first.

Penalties in GolDraft

In our simulator, each shoot-out penalty has a base scoring probability of 76%, which goes up or down a little depending on the difference in level between the teams. In the Live Match, if you control your team, you choose where to shoot and which way your goalkeeper dives, so you can put all of this to the test.