The Psychology of Penalty Kicks

Keepers Should Stay Put

Goalkeepers don't have much time to react to a penalty kicker, so they have to guess which way the ball will go before it's kicked. Most keepers start in the center and dive right or left, often away from the ball. An analysis of 286 penalty kicks found that when keepers jumped right, they had a 12.6 percent chance of stopping the kick, and when they jumped left, they had a 14.2 percent chance of stopping it, but when they stayed in the center the succeed 33.3 percent percent of the time. So why do they jump? To avoid feelings of regret after inaction.

Standing Off-Center is Better
If goalkeepers do plan a jumping strategy, they should begin 6-10 centimeters to one side of the center-point. According to a study, this will subconsciously induce the kicker to shoot to the side with more space an extra 10 percent of the time. Knowing this, the keeper can then jump to that side.

Don't Rush a Kick
Scientists who looked at the amount of time players took before making a penalty kick after the ref blew the go-ahead whistle found that those who took longer performed slightly better. Players who rushed may have been trying to escape a stressful situation. On the other hand, the longer the ref delayed the blowing of the whistle, the worse the kickers performed.

Tell Yourself Not to Screw It Up
Researchers asked players to take five penalty kicks each. Those told not to miss more than two scored more than those told to score at least three. When you're expected to score (about three quarters of penalty kicks go in), you're better off framing the task as a duty to avoid messing up than as a chance to succeed.

Stick to a Target
Kickers should pick a spot and try to hit it no matter what, rather than attempt to react to a keeper's movements during the run-up to the kick. Last-moment alterations lead to errors.

Don't Stress
A survey of hundreds of penalty kicks from championship matches revealed that stress (how much was riding on the kick) determined kickers' success more strongly than their skill or fatigue did.

Goals From the Left Look Stronger
In most languages we read sentences from left to right. Our experience reading biases us to imagine actions happening from left to right. (See: Aesthetics: Reading, Writing, Rembrant.) In one study, people watched clips of soccer goals going left to right or right to left. Italian speakers rated the LTR goals stronger, faster, and more beautiful. Arabic speakers, who read right to left, preferred RTL goals. Not really useful, just interesting.

Credits: Matthew Hutson and the Science of Psych