5 tips to ensure penalty shoot-out success at the World Cup

The 2018 World Cup is in full swing and Sunday was a day of drama as we saw both knockout games go to the dreaded penalty shoot-out as Russia and Croatia held their nerve to progress past Spain and Denmark.

England have endured their fair share of pain since penalty shoot-outs were first used in the 1982 World Cup so it’s no surprise manager Gareth Southgate has confirmed his squad have been practicing their penalties ahead of Tuesday night’s last-16 clash with Colombia.

Maybe someone should show Southgate this interesting infographic as the guys at Betway Insider have analysed every World Cup shoot-out to come up with 5 tips to ensure success from 12 yards.

Worryingly, England have only scored half of their 14 attempts from the spot so they’ll have to improve upon that record if tonight’s game does end all-squad after 120 minutes.

Tip 1 is to make sure you go first as 12 of the 15 shoot-outs have been won by the team that went first while it’s also vital to choose forwards as they have the best [79%] success rate from the spot.

The research also showed that managers should trust their goalscorers as 19 of the 22 players who took a penalty having already scored in the match were successful when taking their penalty.

Tip 4 is interesting as the research showed that No.4 is statistically the most under-pressure penalty taking position so Southgate should send his best taker up fourth – presumably Harry Kane.

And finally, while many coaches urge players to keep the ball down to ensure you hit the target, the key to a winning penalty is actually to aim for the highest third of the net as no World Cup penalty has ever been saved in that portion of the net.

Here is the inforgrpahic: