World Cup extra time rules can hand a shootout edge to the team that wins the coin toss, and the numbers are not close. Research on major competitions found that toss winners went on to win about 60% of shootouts, a practical advantage in knockout games that can end with one kick.
The sharpest example came in the 2022 World Cup final, when Argentina and France finished level at three goals apiece before Argentina won 4-2 on penalties. In a format built on fine margins, the choice made before the first kick can shape the order of pressure for every taker after it.
Mikael Jamil and the first kick
Research covering shootouts at major competitions from 1970 to 2003 found that the team taking the first penalty won 60.5% of the time. After the 2003 rule change let the coin-toss winner choose whether to go first or second, about 60% of toss winners won the shootout. In the later research, teams that shot first won 51% of shootouts.
Mikael Jamil’s 2020 paper in the International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport put that question into league detail. He and his colleagues compared more than 1,700 penalties across four seasons from 2015-16 to 2018-19 in England, Spain, Germany and Italy, showing that the broad edge at the spot did not come from one universal method.
Spain, England, and run-up choices
The technique data showed how uneven penalty success can be. 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 successful penalties.
Run-up length also mattered. 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 worked everywhere except Italy. Short run-ups were not a significant advantage anywhere, which leaves no simple formula for the taker facing the keeper from 12 yards.
Premier League and Serie A
Jamil’s paper split kicks into placed shots, taken with the inside of the foot, and powerful shots, taken with the instep. Both types were associated with successful penalties in Spain, Italy and Germany, but in England only placement was significantly associated with success. Placement was preferred in the Premier League and Serie A, while power was preferred in La Liga and the Bundesliga.
A 2002 paper had already suggested that shots with less power are more likely to be saved and shots with a lot of power are more likely to miss, with about 75% of maximum power identified as the best level. Panenka-style chips were not favored or significantly successful anywhere, so the safest-looking options are not always the ones that win shootouts.
For teams entering World Cup knockout shootouts, the immediate lesson is simple: winning the toss is useful, but it is not the whole script. The better question now is how much of that edge comes from psychology, how much from tactic, and how much from the small sample noise that still hangs over penalty studies.
