Debunked: Taking first penalty in shootout, not an advantage

Penalty shootouts are both exciting and excruciating to watch. The shootout ultimately determines who advances to the next round and at times championships are decided from the spot.

Since the shootout was introduced in the 70s, first in European Championships and later in World Cups starting in 1982 - penalty shootouts have become a staple of big tournaments and something all neutral fans look forward to witnessing.

Ever since - the question has been asked of what is the better strategy - taking the first shot to put the pressure on your rival or go second and play with the advantage of knowing the result of the shot from the other team.

Now at the start of every shootout, you will almost always hear a commentator or pundit convincingly say that there is an inherent advantage to taking the first shot. The reasoning behind this logic is in theory - if you score that first penalty, you put the other team under pressure. I must confess I used to think the same way - but a shootout has five shots per team and going down early doesn't necessarily mean you're doomed.

So I rolled up my sleeves busted of the history books and crunched the numbers to get a definitive statistical answer to the question to the age-old question.

(NOTE: For this post, I focused on all National team competitions - all Euros, World Cups, Confederation Cups, Copa America, African Cup of Nations, AFC, and Gold Cups - I will expand on findings from Club Competitions at a later time.)

It's it better to take the first shot?

The simple answer is that there is no definitive advantage or disadvantage in taking the first penalty.

Across the previously mentioned competitions - in 145 penalty shootouts - the team that took the first penalty won 73 times - 50.3% barely above half of the time.

What this tells us is that simply taking the first shot means nothing, it's still a coin toss.

Now some of you may be thinking - Edwin, when commentators allude to this, is with the understanding that if you take and score the first penalty, you have a substantial advantage to win the shootout - which makes it an inherent advantage...

What do you have to say about that?

Sorry to burst your bubble, but taking and scoring the first penalty doesn't give you the substantial advantage commentators make it seem that exists.

While your chances do increase with scoring the first penalty, is only a small one.

Out of the previously mentioned 145 shootouts - in 111 of them the team who took the first penalty scored and out of those teams that scored on the first shot - only 59 went on to win - that's 53.1%. While that is an advantage - is a slim one and not the overwhelming benefit many make it seem it gives you.

Taking the first shot and missing is more of a disadvantage - than the advantage you get from shooting first and scoring. If you take the first shot and miss your chances of winning drop to 41%

Here is a breakdown of how the numbers compare from the different competitions.

Tournament	Take 1st PK & Win	Take First PK, Score and Win	Take First PK, Miss and Win
FIFA World Cup	46.6%	65.2%	28.5%
UEFA Euro	50%	47%	60%
Copa America	51.1%	54.1%	20%
Gold Cup	53.8%	62.5%	40%
AFCON	51.6%	40%	66.7%
Asian Cup	53.3%	70%	20%
Confederations Cup	40% (2 of 5)	25% (1 of 4)	100% (1 of 1)
Grand Total	50.3%	53.1%	41%

If you take a look at the table you can see that the percentage of taking the first shot and winning is somewhat consistent across all competitions.

There are however a couple of outliners worth pointing out. When you hear about getting an advantage from shooting and scoring first in a shootout what you expect is to see the stats from the World Cup and Asian Cup where essentially you'll win 2 out of 3 shootouts.

The other thing that caught my eye was Africa - where you're more likely to win by shooting first and missing that shot than by scoring.

4 in 10 of teams that shot and scored first PK won, while teams that shot first and missed won in 2 out of 3 shootouts.

CONCLUSION:

If you have good penalty takers and have confidence in them - is slightly better to shoot first. The only reason I think is worth doing so is because it feels like once you get into sudden death - that is the scenario in which scoring first puts the pressure on your rival.

If you're playing at home and you have a larger section of supporters on one end of the field - I would prefer to take the shots at that end of the field and defer the decision of shooting order to the other team.