The penalty shootout is one of the most nerve-wracking spectacles in all of sports. After 120 minutes of soccer with no winner, the entire match comes down to a series of one-on-one duels between a kicker and a goalkeeper from 12 yards out. For new fans, though, the exact rules can be a blur of tension and confusion. How many kicks does each team get? What happens if it’s tied after that? And who’s even allowed to step up and take one?
There’s a clear order to how a shootout unfolds, from the opening coin toss through the first five kicks and into sudden death, along with a few rules about the goalkeeper and which players are eligible that surprise a lot of people.
The diagram below lays out the full sequence and the key rules at a glance. Take a look, then we’ll walk through each part.
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How a Penalty Shootout Starts
Once a knockout match is still level after extra time, it goes to a shootout. A coin toss decides two things: which goal both teams will shoot at, and which team kicks first. That first-kicker advantage matters more than it sounds, because the team going first has historically won the majority of shootouts thanks to the scoreboard pressure it puts on the team kicking second.
The First Five Kicks
Each team gets up to five penalty kicks, and the teams alternate: one kicker from Team A, then one from Team B, back and forth. The team that scores more of its five wins. The phrase “up to five” is important, because a shootout can end before all ten kicks are taken. If one team builds a lead the other cannot mathematically catch, the shootout stops immediately. This is the “best of five” principle, and it’s why you’ll sometimes see a shootout end at 4 to 1 after only eight kicks.
What Happens in Sudden Death
If the teams are level after five kicks each, the shootout moves into sudden death. Now the format changes: each team takes one kick per round, and the first time one team scores while the other misses in the same round, the match is over. If both score or both miss, it simply continues to the next round. Sudden death has no fixed limit and can stretch on for many rounds, which is how some shootouts reach 20 or more total kicks.
Who Can Take a Penalty?
Only players who are on the field at the final whistle of extra time are eligible. Substitutes who never entered the match cannot take part, and a team that finishes with ten players (because of a red card) takes its kicks down a man. Every eligible player, including the goalkeeper, must take a kick before anyone is allowed to take a second one. If a long sudden-death battle runs through the entire lineup, the order resets and players start kicking again in sequence.
The Goalkeeper’s Rules
The goalkeeper has to stay on the goal line, facing the kicker, until the ball is struck. They’re allowed to move side to side along the line, but they cannot step forward off it before the kick, and they cannot touch the goalposts, crossbar, or net. Goalkeepers can also take a penalty themselves once it’s their turn in the order, and on rare occasions a keeper has scored the kick that won the shootout.
A Few Things That Surprise New Fans
Shootout goals are kept separate from the match score. A game decided on penalties officially goes into the records as a draw, with the shootout result only determining who advances. Those penalty goals also don’t count toward a player’s personal scoring tally. And while most major competitions use the alternating ABAB order, FIFA has experimented with an ABBA format (two kicks in a row, like a tennis tiebreaker) in smaller competitions to reduce the first-kicker advantage, though it has not been adopted at the top level.
The Bottom Line
A penalty shootout settles a tied knockout match through up to five alternating kicks per team, won by whoever scores more. If it’s still level, sudden death takes over one round at a time until a winner emerges. Only players on the pitch at the end can shoot, the goalkeeper has to hold the line until the ball is struck, and the result counts only for who advances. Once you know the sequence, the most stressful three minutes in soccer become a lot easier to follow, even if they’re no easier to watch.