Penalty kick success is unaffected by direction: Insights from right-footed world-class soccer players

A penalty kick can decisively impact a soccer match by determining team advancement or final standings. Numerous studies have examined factors influencing penalty kick success. Proposed indicators of kick direction, such as foot and hip angles, may affect outcomes by enabling goalkeepers to anticipate the shot and increase save probability. Other research has shown that penalty takers often aim for specific zones within the goal. However, no study to date has examined whether scoring success differs when players kick the ball across versus away from the body’s axis. In this study, we analyzed penalty kicks by right-footed players during men’s World Cup matches from 1982 to 2022 to determine whether shooting direction (across or away from the body axis) impacts success. We hypothesized that players kicking away from the body axis would be most successful, based on prior research indicating that right-footed players achieve the greatest success when aiming to the right side of the goal. Additionally, other research has identified a right-oriented bias in high-pressure, time-constrained contexts among goalkeepers during penalty shootouts. Similar behavioral and movement tendencies may influence penalty takers. We analyzed 218 penalty kicks: 131 across the body axis (69.5% success), and 87 away from the body axis (69.0% success). A chi-square test yielded a p-value of 0.94, indicating that for these players, shooting direction relative to the body axis did not influence scoring success. These findings suggest that training should emphasize shot placement, psychological readiness, and consistency over shooting direction.