Penalty Shootout Sequence Interpreter

Is the penalty shoot-out already over? Law 10 of the IFAB Laws of the Game stops it as soon as one side cannot be caught. Enter the state of an association football shoot-out and this works out whether any kicks are left.

Last updated 12 Oct 2026

Is the shoot-out decided yet

Law 10.3

Which part of the shoot-outLaw 10.3 is two procedures and they stop on different tests. In the first series the kicks end as soon as one side is beyond the other’s reach. In sudden death they end when one team “has scored a goal more than the other from the same number of kicks”, which can only be judged on a completed pair.

Kicks scored by Team ASuccessful kicks, not goals. A shoot-out decides a drawn match and does not change the score: these never reach goals for, goals against or goal difference.

Kicks taken by Team AKicks taken so far. In the first series this cannot exceed five. Law 10.3 requires each kick to be taken by a different player until every eligible player has kicked once.

Kicks scored by Team BAs for Team A. If one team ends the match with more players than the other, Law 10.3 requires it to “reduce its numbers to the same number as its opponents” before the kicks begin.

Kicks taken by Team BThe teams kick alternately, so this can never differ from Team A’s count by more than one, and the page refuses a pair that could not have arisen. Which team kicks first is settled by a coin toss under Law 10.3, and the winner of the toss chooses.

Team A has won the shoot-outExample

First series. Team A 4 scored from 4 taken; Team B 1 scored from 3 taken

What Law 10.3 actually says, and what IFAB tried instead

First series: the kicks stop when one team’s lead exceeds the kicks the other has left
Sudden death: the kicks stop when one team has scored a goal more than the other from the same number of kicks
Order of kicks: ABAB. The AB-BA order was trialled in 2017 and withdrawn in 2018

the early finish: Law 10.3: “If, before both teams have taken five kicks, one has scored more goals than the other could score even if it were to complete its five kicks, no more kicks are taken.” Five kicks a side is a maximum, not a schedule
whose remaining kicks count: the TRAILING team’s, and this is the part a scorer gets backwards. A lead of two with one kick left for the other side is over; a lead of two when the other side has two kicks left is not, even if the leader also has only one kick of its own remaining
sudden death: after five each, “kicks continue until one team has scored a goal more than the other from the same number of kicks”. The test needs a completed pair, which is why this page asks which part of the shoot-out you are in
who kicks first: a coin toss. Law 10.3 has the referee toss once to choose the goal and again so that “the team that wins the toss decides whether to take the first or second kick”
who may kick: “only players who are on the field of play or are temporarily off the field of play” at the end of the match, so an unused substitute may not take one and a player sent off during the match may not take part. A team ending with more players than its opponents must “reduce its numbers to the same number as its opponents”

Worked example

First series. Team A 4 scored from 4 taken; Team B 1 scored from 3 taken
Team A leads by 4 − 1 = 3
Team B has taken 3 of its 5 kicks, so it has 2 left
A lead of 3 is more than the 2 kicks the trailing team has remaining, so Law 10.3 stops the shoot-out here and the rest are not taken
Give Team B two more goals — 4 from 4 against 3 from 3 — and it is not decided: a lead of 1 is exactly what two remaining kicks can erase
Count the wrong side's kicks and row two of the table below goes wrong: 2 from 4 against 0 from 3 is a lead of 2 with the leader holding one kick, which looks final and is not, because the trailing team has two
Enter 5 scored from 4 taken and the page refuses: a team cannot score more kicks than it has taken
Switch to sudden death with 6 from 6 against 5 from 6 and Team A has won; with 6 from 6 against 5 from 5 it is not over, and Team B must score

When a shoot-out is already over, and when it only looks like it

Every verdict here is what the interpreter above returns for those four numbers. Row two is the one worth reading twice, because it is where the natural mistake shows: Team A leads by two with only one kick of its own left, which looks final, and is not, because Law 10.3 compares the lead with the TRAILING team’s remaining kicks and Team B has two. Stop a shoot-out there and you have stopped one that still had a result in it.
Part	Team A	Team B	What Law 10.3 gives
First series	4 scored of 4 taken	1 scored of 3 taken	Decided. A leads by 3 and B has 2 kicks left
First series	2 scored of 4 taken	0 scored of 3 taken	Live. A leads by 2 and B has 2 kicks left — exactly enough, so B must convert both
First series	3 scored of 4 taken	1 scored of 4 taken	Decided. A leads by 2 and B has 1 kick left
First series	3 scored of 4 taken	2 scored of 4 taken	Live. A leads by 1 and B has 1 kick left
First series	3 scored of 5 taken	3 scored of 5 taken	Level after five each. Sudden death follows
Sudden death	6 scored of 6 taken	5 scored of 6 taken	Decided. A goal more from the same number of kicks
Sudden death	6 scored of 6 taken	5 scored of 5 taken	Live. B is a kick behind in an incomplete pair and must score
Sudden death	5 scored of 6 taken	5 scored of 5 taken	Live. A missed, so B wins the shoot-out by scoring

The AB-BA order: a trial with a decision and a date

A rule change that was tried and abandoned, with a body, a venue and a date at each step. The IFAB’s own spelling is AB-BA; most reporting writes ABBA. Note what the Board gave as its reason: not that the advantage had been disproved, but that there was no strong support and that the procedure was complex. The order in Law 10.3 is ABAB, and the interpreter above implements the stopping test, which is the same under either order.
Stage	What happened	Where this was read
The order in the Law	ABAB. Team A kicks, then Team B, alternately, and the referee tosses a coin so that “the team that wins the toss decides whether to take the first or second kick”	Laws of the Game, Law 10.3
The hypothesis	That the second kicker of each pair is under more pressure. UEFA: “The hypothesis is that the player taking the second kick in the pair is under greater mental pressure.” IFAB’s research was reported as putting the first team’s chance of winning at about 60 per cent	Sky Sports, 3 May 2017
The sequence trialled	AB-BA: “team A take the first penalty, team B the second and third, team A the fourth and fifth and so on until each has taken five”, with the sequence continuing into sudden death	Inside World Football, 23 November 2018
Where it was trialled	The men’s European U17 Championship in Croatia and the women’s European U17 Championship in the Czech Republic, with The IFAB approving the trials in March 2017	Sky Sports, 3 May 2017
The decision	Withdrawn. On “the alternative order of kicks during Kicks from the Penalty Mark (so-called ‘AB-BA’)”, “the Board noted the absence of strong support, mainly because the procedure is complex” and “agreed that it will no longer be a future option for competitions”	The IFAB, 133rd Annual Business Meeting, Glasgow, 22 November 2018

Does the team kicking first really win more often? The published answer is contested

These two are printed side by side because they disagree, and reconciling them silently would mean picking one without saying so. There is a second disagreement inside the first row: the working-paper abstract read for this page describes a sample of 262 shoot-outs while the comment paper describes the published version’s as 129, and both are descriptions of the same study. The 60.5% figure is quoted identically in both documents. Neither paper is a governing body and neither number is a rule; what is a rule is the coin toss in Law 10.3 and the choice the winner of it gets.
Study	Sample	Share won by the team kicking first	Conclusion
Apesteguia and Palacios-Huerta	Described in the working-paper record read as 2,731 kicks from 262 shoot-outs over three decades; Kocher, Lenz and Sutter describe the published version’s sample as 129 shoot-outs in ten competitions	60.5%	A systematic first-mover advantage, attributed to the pressure of trailing in the partial score
Kocher, Lenz and Sutter	262 shoot-outs from 1970 to June 2003 in the German Cup, the European Champions League, the Cup Winners’ Cup, the UEFA Cup, the European Championship and the World Cup	53.4%	“we did not find significant evidence of a first-mover advantage”

Five kicks a side is a maximum, not a schedule

This is the penalty shoot-out of association football — soccer — taken from the penalty mark under Law 10 of the IFAB Laws of the Game. A field hockey shoot-out, a rugby kicking competition and an ice hockey shootout are different procedures under different governing bodies, and the arithmetic below is not theirs. Law 10.3 sets the procedure: the referee tosses a coin to choose the goal, tosses again so that “the team that wins the toss decides whether to take the first or second kick”, and then “both teams take five kicks” alternately, each by a different player until every eligible player has kicked once. Only players “who are on the field of play or are temporarily off the field of play” at the end of the match may take one, and a team that finishes with more players than its opponents must “reduce its numbers to the same number as its opponents” first.

The arithmetic worth a page is when it stops, because a shoot-out very often does not reach ten kicks. Law 10.3 ends the first series as soon as “one has scored more goals than the other could score even if it were to complete its five kicks”. The comparison is the leader’s margin against the trailing team’s remaining kicks, and that is the thing a scoreboard operator gets backwards under pressure. Four from four against one from three is over: a lead of three beats the two kicks the trailing side has left. Two from four against none from three is not over, even though the leader has only one kick of its own remaining, because the trailing side has two and two is exactly enough. After five each the test changes shape entirely — “kicks continue until one team has scored a goal more than the other from the same number of kicks” — so sudden death is judged on completed pairs and the first series is not, which is why this page asks which part you are in.

Behind the order of kicks sits a real rule-change story with a decision and a date. The hypothesis was that the second kicker in each pair carries more pressure, as UEFA put it: “The hypothesis is that the player taking the second kick in the pair is under greater mental pressure.” The IFAB approved trials of an AB-BA order in March 2017 and it was used at the men’s and women’s European U17 Championships that May. At its 133rd Annual Business Meeting in Glasgow on 22 November 2018 the Board withdrew it: it “noted the absence of strong support, mainly because the procedure is complex”, and “agreed that it will no longer be a future option for competitions”. The reason given was complexity and lack of appetite, not a finding that the advantage was imaginary.

Whether the advantage is real is genuinely contested, and the table above prints both answers rather than choosing. Apesteguia and Palacios-Huerta report that “teams kicking first win the penalty shoot-out 60.5% of the time”; Kocher, Lenz and Sutter, over 262 shoot-outs from 1970 to June 2003 across six competitions, found that “teams kicking first win only 53.4% of 262 shootouts in our data” and that “we did not find significant evidence of a first-mover advantage”. Neither is a governing body and neither number is a rule. What is settled is where the shoot-out sits: Article 21.01 of the Regulations of the UEFA Champions League 2026/27 reaches it only after two 15-minute periods of extra time, and the two-legged tie and away goals calculator shows which ties get that far. For the same “is it decided yet” question in another code, with a different series length and a clock on each attempt, the field hockey penalty shootout interpreter runs the FIH’s procedure. Every figure on this page is printed with the body that publishes it and the season or edition it belongs to, because a football number is usually a regulation rather than a fact, and regulations are revised. Check the playing conditions or competition regulations for the competition in front of you before relying on a default.

Frequently asked questions

Can a penalty shoot-out end before all ten kicks are taken?

Yes, and it usually does. Law 10.3: “If, before both teams have taken five kicks, one has scored more goals than the other could score even if it were to complete its five kicks, no more kicks are taken.” The comparison is always the leader’s margin against the TRAILING team’s remaining kicks.

What happens if a shoot-out is level after five kicks each?

It goes to sudden death, and the test changes: “kicks continue until one team has scored a goal more than the other from the same number of kicks”. That needs a completed pair, so a team one kick ahead inside a pair has not won anything yet.

What was the ABBA penalty shootout format, and why was it dropped?

The IFAB writes it AB-BA: team A takes the first kick, team B the second and third, team A the fourth and fifth, and so on. It was trialled from March 2017, including at both European U17 Championships. At its 133rd Annual Business Meeting in Glasgow on 22 November 2018 the Board “noted the absence of strong support, mainly because the procedure is complex” and agreed it “will no longer be a future option for competitions”.

Does the team that kicks first in a shoot-out have an advantage?

The published research disagrees. Apesteguia and Palacios-Huerta report that teams kicking first win 60.5% of the time; Kocher, Lenz and Sutter, over 262 shoot-outs from six competitions between 1970 and 2003, found 53.4% and “did not find significant evidence of a first-mover advantage”. The coin toss itself is in Law 10.3, and the winner of it chooses whether to kick first or second.

Who is allowed to take a kick in a shoot-out?

Under Law 10.3, “only players who are on the field of play or are temporarily off the field of play” at the end of the match, so an unused substitute cannot take one. A player sent off during the match may not take part, and a team ending the match with more players than its opponents must “reduce its numbers to the same number as its opponents” first.

Related calculators

References

The IFAB. Laws of the Game, Law 10 — Determining the Outcome of a Match, sections 10.2 and 10.3. Zurich: The International Football Association Board. 10.2 lists the only permitted procedures as the “away goals rule”, “two equal periods of extra time not exceeding 15 minutes each” and “penalties (penalty shoot-out)”. 10.3: “both teams take five kicks”; “If, before both teams have taken five kicks, one has scored more goals than the other could score even if it were to complete its five kicks, no more kicks are taken”; then “kicks continue until one team has scored a goal more than the other from the same number of kicks”; the coin tosses; and who is eligible.
The Football Association. “Law 10 — Determining the Outcome of a Match”, thefa.com, the page labelled “IFAB Laws of the Game 2026-27”. Read as a second, independent copy of section 10.2 so that the survival of the “away goals rule” in the Law’s own list of permitted procedures does not rest on a single fetch. The FA’s copy prints the same three bullets in the same order.
The IFAB. “IFAB’s 133rd Annual Business Meeting recommends fine-tuning laws for the benefit of the game.” theifab.com, 22 November 2018, Glasgow. On “the alternative order of kicks during Kicks from the Penalty Mark (so-called ‘AB-BA’)”: “the Board noted the absence of strong support, mainly because the procedure is complex” and the Board “agreed that it will no longer be a future option for competitions”.
Inside World Football. “IFAB rules on time-wasting subs, handballs and penalty shoot-outs.” insideworldfootball.com, 23 November 2018. Read as a second account of the Glasgow decision and for the sequence itself: “team A take the first penalty, team B the second and third, team A the fourth and fifth and so on until each has taken five”, and “The sequence continues if the shootout then goes to sudden death.” Records that the formal vote followed at the Annual General Meeting on 2 March.
Sky Sports. “European U17 Championships kick off trial of new penalty shootout format.” skysports.com, 3 May 2017. The AB-BA order was trialled at the men’s European U17 Championship in Croatia and the women’s European U17 Championship in the Czech Republic, with The IFAB approving the trials in March 2017. UEFA’s statement: “The hypothesis is that the player taking the second kick in the pair is under greater mental pressure.”
Apesteguia J, Palacios-Huerta I. “Psychological pressure in competitive environments: evidence from a randomized natural experiment.” Economics working-paper record 1116, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, econ-papers.upf.edu. “teams kicking first win the penalty shoot-out 60.5% of the time”. The abstract read gives the sample as 2,731 kicks from 262 shoot-outs; Kocher, Lenz and Sutter describe the published version’s as 129 shoot-outs in ten competitions. The two descriptions disagree and both are printed.
Kocher MG, Lenz MV, Sutter M. “Psychological pressure in competitive environments: evidence from a randomized natural experiment: comment.” Discussion paper, University of Munich, epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de. 262 shoot-outs from 1970 to June 2003 across the German Cup, the European Champions League, the Cup Winners’ Cup, the UEFA Cup, the European Championship and the World Cup: “Teams kicking first win only 53.4% of 262 shootouts in our data”, and “we did not find significant evidence of a first-mover advantage”. The journal of record was not shown on the copy read, so none is claimed here.
UEFA. Regulations of the UEFA Champions League 2026/27, Articles 20 and 21. documents.uefa.com. 20.01, “each club plays each opponent twice, in home and away matches”; 20.03, “The team that scores the greater aggregate of goals in the two matches qualifies for the next stage. Otherwise, Article 21 applies.”; 21.01, two 15-minute periods of extra time then a penalty shoot-out; 21.02, a five-minute break; 21.03, penalties “in accordance with the IFAB Laws of the Game”. Neither article contains an away-goals criterion.