There have been 30 World Cup penalty shootouts - with 279 kicks taken overall (excluding Diana Ross' disastrous effort at USA '94). Your c

World Cup 2022: How to take a penalty in a shootout

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2022-12-03 19:00:29

There have been 30 World Cup penalty shootouts - with 279 kicks taken overall (excluding Diana Ross' disastrous effort at USA '94).

Your chances of scoring a penalty are much increased if you go to the right or left - but please avoid putting it down the middle.

Some 74% of penalties placed to the right, and the same percentage of those put to the left, go in. But penalties down the middle are only scored 57% of the time - that is a record of 36 from 63.

You have a similar chance of having a penalty saved whichever way you shoot (about 21%), but you are much, much likelier to miss the target down the middle.

Some 11% of central penalties hit the crossbar and another 11% go over. Go left or right and those numbers drop to 3% and 1% respectively.

This shouldn't be too surprising since the best penalty takers usually go first (unless you're Cristiano Ronaldo).