The claim: “The kick that must go in trembles.”
When a miss eliminates, the kick goes in less often.
In World Cup penalty shootouts, the must-score kick is converted far less often than the rest. The sample is small, so the verdict is borderline.
VerdictTrue, borderline
Conversion in penalty shootouts
28 of 48 must-score kicks went in; of the others, 185 of 260.
What it means
58%of the kicks where a miss eliminates went in (28 of 48).
71%of the other kicks (185 of 260).
13points apart. The interval runs from +1 to +28: the gap is real, but it may be small.
How we know
- Base
- every penalty shootout kick of the 1986 to 2022 World Cups, in order.
- Must-score
- a miss eliminates at once: in the first five rounds, when even scoring every remaining kick would not catch the rival; in sudden death, when the rival has already scored in the round.
- Rule, written before looking at the data
- true if the interval sat above zero and both halves of the history agreed. They agree, but the 99% interval reaches zero: True, borderline.