Why Penalty Shootouts Can Never Be Truly Fair in Football
Penalty shootouts are not unfair because anyone is breaking the rules. Both teams know what is coming. Knockout football just needs a winner. The problem is that penalties decide a football match by moving it into a different game. For 120 minutes, football is eleven players trying to work each other out.
One team may press high, another may sit deep. One side may waste the better chances; the other may hang on through blocks, clearances and one big save. Then penalties arrive, and the whole contest is reduced to a different test. Suddenly, everything that came before has to stand behind a few kicks.
What Happened Before Penalties Loses Value
A team can control most of the match and still enter penalties with no advantage. More possession, more shots and better chances may show how the match really went. In the shootout, they count for nothing.
By the rules, nothing is wrong. But as a way of judging the match, it does not feel complete.
Football is not only goals. It is pressure, territory, defending, missed chances and small moments that never make the highlights. A shootout cannot carry all of that. It leaves most of the match behind and starts something smaller. It may be thrilling, but it is still a different contest.
Same Spot, Different Situation
Every penalty starts from the same mark. That is the easy part to measure. The harder part is what is happening around the kick. The first taker has room to breathe. The fifth often does not.
A player kicking to win feels pressure. A player kicking to avoid elimination feels something else.
Even the order has been debated. Some older studies pointed to a first-kick advantage, while a 2024 PLOS ONE study did not find a statistical advantage in the usual alternating order. So this is not about claiming the first team always wins. It is simpler than that: the score before the kick changes the kick itself. The spot is the same. The pressure is not.
Too Much Blame Falls on One Moment
A player can be excellent for two hours, then miss one penalty and become the story of the night. In normal play, one mistake does not always finish the story. A bad pass can be covered. A goalkeeper can save a teammate. A missed chance can be followed by another one.
In a shootout, there may be no rescue. One kick. One close-up. One replay that follows the player for years. A whole night can shrink into one miss.
Not Every Kicker Reaches the Spot the Same Way
By extra time, every player is carrying a different version of the match. One player has run for 120 minutes. Another is hiding cramps. Another may have come on late mainly for penalties. Someone else may be standing there only because the better takers are already off the pitch.
On the scoresheet, every kick counts the same. In real life, the players reaching that point are not in the same condition.
A penalty is not only about the ball, the goal and the goalkeeper. It is also about tired legs, heavy breathing and the two hours that came before it.
The Goalkeeper Also Changes the Test
A shootout is not just a striker shooting at a goal. The goalkeeper is also trying to get into the taker’s head before the run-up starts. He waits a little longer, shuffles on the line, stares at the taker and slows the moment down. IFAB limits this.
The goalkeeper must stay on the goal line until the ball is kicked and cannot unfairly distract the taker by delaying the kick or touching the posts, bar or net. But the mind game never fully goes away. Some goalkeepers stay quiet. Others make even the walk to the ball feel uncomfortable.
That is why two penalties from the same spot can still feel like two different tests.
Why Football Keeps It Anyway
Football keeps penalties because every alternative has its own problem. Extra time cannot go on forever. Golden goal can make teams scared. Replays are hard when clubs, broadcasters and tournaments are already packed together.
Playing until someone scores sounds fair in theory, but exhaustion eventually takes over. Sooner or later, someone has to go through. That is why penalties survive. They are not perfect. They are just the least messy ending football has accepted.
Final Takeaway
Penalty shootouts can never be truly fair because they are not the match itself. They are a way to end the match.
They test nerve, technique, fatigue and pressure. But they cannot carry the whole story of 120 minutes — the defending, the missed chances, the tactical choices, the momentum swings and the work players have already put in. That is why football keeps them and still argues about them. They decide who goes through. They do not always settle who was better.
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