Performing under Pressure: Revisiting Penalty Shootouts

Jan van Ours and Martin van Tuijl
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Jan van Ours: Erasmus University Rotterdam
Martin van Tuijl: Tilburg University

No 26-052/V, Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers from Tinbergen Institute

Abstract: A penalty shootout in professional football is a tie-breaking sequence of penalty kicks. A penalty kick is a shot taken from the penalty mark, at a distance of 11 meters (12 yards) from the goal line. Only the opposing goalkeeper may attempt to prevent a score. Penalty shootouts allow for the study of the relation between performance outcomes and psychological pressure. Psychological pressure may be influenced by whether or not a team starts the sequence and may be present at individual kicks that are potentially decisive on the outcome of the shootout. This paper presents an analysis of penalty shootouts in matches for the Dutch cup competition over a period of 59 seasons. We analyze the outcomes of 291 shootouts and 2,680 individual penalty kicks from 262 of those shootouts. There is evidence of a first-mover advantage but this materializes in the early part of the sample period and not in recent years. Moreover, penalty kicks are more likely to fail under pressure.

Keywords: organisational failures; blame; experiment; mistakes; lying (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C20 D91 J24 Z20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-08-02
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