Key takeaways
- Remember that only players on the field, or temporarily off it, at the final whistle may kick — plus a replacement for a goalkeeper who cannot continue.
- If one team ends with more players, it must drop players until the numbers match, and the dropped players cannot kick.
- Plan the order beyond five: every eligible player must kick before anyone kicks twice, but the order can be changed for each new sequence.
- Treat a shoot-out as part of the match result, not of the match itself — cautions from the match are wiped, and sent-off players cannot take part.
- Expect sudden death more often when kickers are reliable: under a simple independence model, higher scoring rates make level scores after five kicks more likely.
A penalty shoot-out gives each team five kicks from the penalty mark, taken alternately; if the scores are still level, the kicks continue in pairs until one team scores and the other does not. In soccer (association football), the procedure is section 10.3 of Law 10 in the IFAB Laws of the Game — officially "penalties (penalty shoot-out)" — and it decides a winner only when competition rules require one after a drawn match. Each kick follows Law 14, the penalty kick, unless Law 10 says otherwise.
The procedure described here is the one in the 2026/27 Laws, effective from 1 July 2026, which wrote in a clarification about accidental double touches by the kicker.
When a match goes to penalties
Under Law 10, a match with equal goals is a draw. Only when a competition requires a winner may it use an away-goals rule, extra time, penalties, or a combination. So whether penalties follow 90 minutes directly, or only after extra time, is the competition's choice. The shoot-out is not part of the match itself: it is taken "after the match has ended", which has consequences for cards and substitutions.
Before the first kick
The order of business is set out step by step:
- Choosing the goal. The referee tosses a coin to decide which goal is used, unless ground conditions or safety decide it. The goal can then be changed only for safety reasons or if the goal or surface becomes unusable.
- Choosing who goes first. A second coin toss; the winner decides whether to kick first or second.
- Who is eligible. Only players on the field, or temporarily off it for an injury or adjusting equipment, at the end of the match. The exception is a substitute replacing a goalkeeper who cannot continue. A change requested before the final whistle but not completed cannot be made afterwards, under Law 3.
- Reducing to equate. If one team has more players than the other — after a red card, or an injury with no substitutes left — it must reduce its numbers to match and tell the referee the name and number of each excluded player. Excluded players cannot kick.
- The order. Each team picks its order from its eligible players and does not tell the referee.
Two cleanups from the match: a player sent off during it cannot take part, and warnings and cautions from the match "are not carried forward", so a player on a yellow card starts the shoot-out without one.
How each kick works
The kick itself is a penalty kick under Law 14:
- the ball is stationary with part of it touching or overhanging the centre of the penalty mark;
- the defending goalkeeper stays on the goal line, facing the kicker, between the posts, without touching the posts, crossbar or net, until the ball is kicked — and at the kick, at least part of one foot must be touching, in line with, or behind the goal line;
- the ball must be kicked forward; a backheel is allowed if the ball moves forward;
- feinting in the run-up is allowed; feinting once the run-up is complete is not.
Law 10 adds the shoot-out's own positions. All eligible players except the kicker and the two goalkeepers stay in the centre circle. The kicking team's goalkeeper waits on the field, outside the penalty area, where the goal line meets the penalty-area line. Only eligible players and match officials may be on the field.
A kick is complete when the ball stops moving, goes out of play, or the referee stops play for an offence, and the kicker may not deliberately play it again. Unlike a penalty in the match, there is no rebound to follow up.
Offences during a kick
| What happens | Outcome |
|---|---|
| Goalkeeper offends and the kick is retaken | First offence: warning. Any later offence: caution |
| Kicker offends after the referee's signal (for example, an illegal feint) | Kick recorded as missed; kicker cautioned |
| Kicker accidentally kicks with both feet, or the ball touches the standing foot or leg straight after the kick — ball goes in | Kick retaken |
| Same accident — ball does not go in | Kick recorded as missed |
The last two rows are the 2026/27 change: the IFAB's announcement of the edition says it incorporates circular no. 31 of June 2025 on accidental double touches. At the same time, the change log deleted the rule that automatically recorded a miss and cautioned the kicker whenever kicker and goalkeeper offended at the same moment.
Five each, then sudden death
- Kicks alternate between the teams, and each team takes five.
- Each kick is taken by a different player.
- If, before both teams have taken five, one has scored more than the other could reach with its remaining kicks, the shoot-out ends.
- If it is level after five each, kicks continue until one team has scored a goal more than the other from the same number of kicks — in practice, pairs of kicks until one is scored and the other is not.
"After 11 players"
Every eligible player must take a kick before anyone takes a second. In a shoot-out between two full teams, that means all eleven players on each side — goalkeepers included — kick before the cycle restarts. When it does, the same principle applies to the next sequence, but a team may change the order of its kickers. A team reduced to nine players starts its second cycle after nine kicks; reducing to equate means the opponents do too.
Cards, injuries and walk-offs during the shoot-out
Players, substitutes, substituted players and team officials can still be cautioned or sent off during penalties. A goalkeeper who is sent off must be replaced by an eligible player. A goalkeeper who is unable to continue may be replaced by a player excluded when the numbers were equalised or, if the team has substitutes left, by a named substitute; the replaced goalkeeper takes no further part, and if they have already kicked, their replacement must wait for the next round of kicks to take one. Any other player who cannot continue is not replaced. The shoot-out is not delayed for a player who leaves the field — their kick is forfeited if they are not back in time — and the referee must not abandon the match even if a team falls below seven players.
The probability box: why five kicks are often not enough
The Laws say nothing about how often kicks are scored, and real conversion rates vary by competition and player. A simple model makes the structure visible. Assume every kick is scored independently with the same probability p. Then:
- each team's goals from five kicks follow a binomial distribution, and the chance the teams are level after five each is the sum over k = 0 to 5 of [C(5, k) × p^k × (1 − p)^(5 − k)]²;
- each sudden-death pair is decisive only when exactly one kick is scored, with probability 2p(1 − p).
| Assumed scoring rate p | Level after five each | A sudden-death pair decides it | Expected pairs once level |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.70 | about 27% | 42% | about 2.4 |
| 0.75 | about 29% | 37.5% | about 2.7 |
| 0.80 | about 32% | 32% | about 3.1 |
Two things fall out of the arithmetic. Under these assumptions, more than a quarter of shoot-outs reach sudden death, and the better the kickers, the more likely and the longer it gets — because reliable kickers make "both score" the most likely result of each pair. That is why a team's sixth, seventh and eighth kickers matter more than they look. The model ignores pressure, goalkeeper skill and the order of kicking, so treat it as an illustration of the format, not a forecast; understanding probability in sports simulations explains the same independence assumption in other contexts.
How a shoot-out differs from a league decider
A shoot-out settles a single tie. Leagues settle level teams over a season with points and tie-breakers instead, which goal difference and tiebreakers and how soccer league tables work cover. Which one a competition uses is a question of format, and the formations guide covers the part of any tie that comes before a spot kick.
Pro Football GM Club Soccer is a drafting game in which you assemble an XI position by position and let a simulated league season play out under the game's own rules. Football Career Soccer XI Sim follows one fictional player, whose finishing is one attribute among many. Neither title forecasts real shoot-outs or results, and neither has any tie to the IFAB or a league. The soccer hub links our other match-deciding rules explainers, and the games are in sports career and GM games.
Good to know
Frequently asked questions
Who can take a kick in a penalty shoot-out?
What happens after every eligible player has taken a kick?
What does reducing to equate mean?
Can a goalkeeper be replaced during a shoot-out?
What changed in the shoot-out rules for 2026/27?
Sources
- Law 10 – Determining the Outcome of a Match (Laws of the Game 2026/27) (opens in a new tab)The International Football Association Board (IFAB) — accessed
- Law 14 – The Penalty Kick (opens in a new tab)The International Football Association Board (IFAB) — accessed
- Law changes 2026/27 (opens in a new tab)The International Football Association Board (IFAB) — accessed
- The IFAB introduces further measures to improve match flow and player behaviour (opens in a new tab)The International Football Association Board (IFAB) — accessed
- Law 3 – The Players (opens in a new tab)The International Football Association Board (IFAB) — accessed
League, team and athlete names appear here only to identify the rules, records and history being discussed. Reign Creative LLC's sports games are not affiliated with, endorsed by or licensed by any league, team, players' association or athlete, and all names and marks belong to their owners.
About the author
Reign Creative LLC — The independent app studio that builds the apps covered on this site and publishes every article here. On Google Play it publishes as Reign Collective Apps.
We use AI tools to help research, draft and edit our articles. Each article lists the sources its factual claims rely on, and details about our apps come from their live Google Play listings. No article on this site has been reviewed by an independent expert unless the reviewer is named on it.
No person at Reign Creative LLC has read this article in full. It was published after automated checks and an AI editorial review, which are described in our editorial policy and are not the same as a person reading every sentence.
Spotted an error? Tell us — how corrections are handled is set out in our editorial policy.
