10→ Football
Your turn: penalty shootout
Coin toss, five kicks each and sudden death if needed. Pick where to shoot, dive to a side and watch your chance of winning change after every kick.
Coin toss first. Call it:
The exact math
Every kick at the study rates: 74.8% goals, 15.3% saved, 9.9% missed.
With the same rate for both, kicking first changes nothing: the shootout is a coin toss.
On which kick is it decided?
Kicks counted for both teams together. 11+ is sudden death.
10kicks in the median shootout
28.9%go to sudden death
10.8kicks on average
In the study data the team that kicked first won 48.83% of shootouts: no real advantage.
Rates: Vollmer, Schoch & Brandes (2023), arXiv (table 3, 14,189 shootout kicks). Rules: IFAB Laws of the Game 2026/27, Law 10.
How to play
- Coin tossCall heads or tails. The winner chooses to kick first or second.
- You shootTap one of the six zones of the goal. The computer keeper picks a side or the middle at random.
- You saveWhen the rival shoots, pick left, middle or right. Guess the side and you have a chance to stop it.
- Early finishWhen a team can no longer catch up with the kicks it has left, the shootout ends there.
- Sudden deathLevel after five each, teams kick one at a time until one scores and the other does not.
What happens on each kick
| Result | In the study | In the game |
|---|---|---|
| Goal | 74.8% | 74.8% |
| Saved | 15.3% | 15.3% |
| Wide or post | 9.9% | 9.9% |
14,189 shootout kicks in European cup competitions (Vollmer, Schoch and Brandes, 2023, arXiv).
Why keepers save so few
Saves = on target × guess the side × stop it once guessed
Example: When the kick is on target, the keeper guesses the side one time in three and, when he does, stops 51%. Total: 15.3%.
Myth and numbers
What people say
- Kicking first is an advantage.
- Sudden death almost never happens.
- All ten kicks are always taken.
What the math says
- In the data, the team kicking first won 48.83% of shootouts.
- At the real rates, 29% of shootouts reach sudden death.
- 44% are decided before the tenth kick.
Questions
Is the game rigged against me?
No. Every kick follows the study rates: 74.8% goals, 15.3% saved and 9.9% wide, for you and for the rival alike.
Is it better to kick first?
With the same rates for both, no: the first team wins 50%. In real data it won 48.83%, a gap the study does not count as an advantage.
Is there a corner that never fails?
Against a keeper who dives at random, no. Every corner ends in a goal 74.8% of the time; only the drama changes.
What if the first team scores more often?
Try it with the sliders of the exact math, below the game: with 80% against 70%, the first team wins 67% of shootouts.