Who Cracks From 12 Yards? A Nation-by-Nation Penalty Database for WC26

Hugo Lloris carried a notebook to Russia in 2018. Inside it: every Croatian-passing penalty taker in his recall, with shot height, foot of preference, and a column for "tells" — the body cues Lloris and his goalkeeping coach Frank Raviot had pulled from video. France never reached a shootout in 2018, so the notebook went unused. Four years later, in Qatar, a different Lloris notebook was open in the dressing-room before the final. Five takers were profiled. Argentina won 4-2 because Emiliano Martínez had a notebook of his own, and Gonzalo Montiel did not.

The notebook era of penalties is now the norm. Every federation in the WC26 field has shootout-preparation files. Every goalkeeper coach has the same Wyscout subscription. And yet, at the international level, conversion rates still vary by nation in ways that are not random.

This piece aggregates every senior men's international penalty between 2018-01-01 and 2026-05-15, across friendlies, qualifiers, and finals, for the 48 WC26 qualifiers. The source set is FBref, ESPN's penalty archive, and Opta Analyst's shootout database, cross-checked against federation-level records where available. Sample sizes are small for many nations — treat anything under 10 attempts with caveats — but the patterns at the top and bottom are stable.

The leaderboard: conversion by nation

This is the headline metric. Penalty conversion percentage across all in-game and shootout attempts since 2018. Field average is approximately 76% for in-game penalties and 70% for shootout attempts — a gap that nearly every researcher attributes to pressure context, not goalkeeper quality.

Top of the table: Brazil, Argentina, France

Brazil (85%, 23 of 27)

The Seleção's overall conversion rate sits at the top of the field — though the shootout subset (2-1) is less impressive than the in-game number. Brazil's in-game conversion since 2018 has been driven by Neymar (12-for-13) and Casemiro (3-for-3), with Marquinhos and Lucas Paquetá splitting most of the rest. The famous 2022 quarterfinal shootout loss to Croatia — Marquinhos hitting the post on the decisive miss — is the asterisk on the record. Per Opta's shootout database, Brazil's first-taker conversion rate is 100% since 2018; their fourth-taker conversion rate is 60%. That second number is the one to watch in any 2026 knockout shootout.

Argentina (84%, 26 of 31)

The shootout record — four wins from four since 2018 — is the most predictive piece of data in this entire piece. Argentina's run includes the 2021 Copa América semi-final vs Colombia, the 2022 World Cup quarter-final vs Netherlands, the 2022 World Cup final vs France, and the 2024 Copa América quarter-final vs Ecuador. Across those four shootouts, Argentina scored 17 of 21 attempts (81%) and Emiliano Martínez saved or forced misses on 5 of his 21 attempts faced.

The Argentina shootout playbook is now well-documented. Lionel Messi takes second, not first or fifth. Lautaro Martínez takes the highest-pressure slot when in the side. Per Geir Jordet's published research, this taker-order optimization is one of two factors (the other being goalkeeper specialization) that statistically separate consistent shootout winners from the field.

France (83%, 20 of 24)

France's in-game conversion is built almost entirely on Kylian Mbappé, who is 11-for-12 on senior penalties since 2018. The shootout record (2-1) is less impressive — and includes the 2022 World Cup final loss in which Mbappé scored, Coman missed, and Tchouaméni missed. The takeaway: France are elite when Mbappé takes, average when a non-Mbappé takes. Didier Deschamps will likely lean even harder on this in 2026.

The middle: Spain, Morocco, Croatia

Spain's penalty revival

The Spain story is the cleanest before-and-after in international football. Pre-2018, Spain were 17% on shootouts in World Cup and Euro knockouts. Since 2018, they are 1-1 — with the shootout win coming over Italy in the 2024 Euros semi-final. The in-game conversion rate (81%) is healthy, with Álvaro Morata at 6-for-7 as a recent surprise. Luis de la Fuente has reportedly built shootout-prep sessions into every camp since the 2024 Euros, drawing on the Geir Jordet research model.

Morocco's quiet excellence

Morocco's 2-0 shootout record since 2018 is the second-best in the field by win percentage. Both wins came at the 2022 World Cup (vs Spain in the R16, vs Portugal in the QF) under Yassine Bounou's goalkeeping. Bounou's career save rate on senior international penalties is 33% (3 of 9 faced) per Opta — well above the field average of around 20%. If Morocco reach extra time in 2026, the data says they are favourites to advance.

Croatia: the shootout machine that lost the war

Croatia's 3-0 shootout record since 2018 is the best win rate in the entire field, on the largest knockout sample. Their losses come outside shootouts. Modrić's calmness as a fifth taker is the central reason — he has converted all four of his shootout attempts in the sample. With Modrić's likely retirement after WC26, the question is whether the institutional knowledge has transferred to Andrej Kramarić and Mateo Kovačić, both of whom are reportedly part of the new shootout taker order.

The bottom: England's improvement, and the genuine strugglers

England (71%, 17 of 24)

The most discussed penalty record in international football. England's lifetime World Cup and Euros shootout record is 3-7. Since Gareth Southgate took over in 2016 and built a shootout-research department (drawing on Geir Jordet's work and led by analyst Chris Markham), the record is 3 wins, 2 losses — a marked improvement. The losses are the 2018 World Cup semi-final (to Croatia, in extra time, not shootout) and the 2020 Euro final.

The 2024 Euros and Nations League cycle saw England score on 10 of 13 in-game attempts (77%), with Harry Kane at 8-for-9. Thomas Tuchel inherited that infrastructure and has reportedly kept the shootout protocol intact. The 71% career number in our table is dragged down by a thin sample of pre-2020 misses; the 2024-2026 conversion rate is closer to 78%.

Scotland, New Zealand, and the small samples

The lowest conversion rates in the field belong to Scotland (60%), New Zealand (50%), Iraq and Qatar (57%). None of these teams has a credible shootout sample — but the in-game conversion rates are flags. Scotland's number is dragged down by Lyndon Dykes missing twice in 2023 plus a Scott McTominay miss vs Spain. In a knockout-format tournament, these are the teams most exposed to penalty variance.

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The psychology — Geir Jordet's research, in one chart

Norwegian sport scientist Geir Jordet has spent two decades publishing the most-cited academic research on penalty-kick pressure. Three findings from his work that translate directly to 2026 prep:

1. 1Finding 1

   Time-to-shoot matters

   Per Jordet (2009), penalty takers who waited less than one second after the referee's whistle converted at 57%. Takers who waited more than one second converted at 80%. The composure proxy is the most replicated finding in the literature.

2. 2Finding 2

   Avoiding the goalkeeper's gaze

   Takers who avoided eye contact with the goalkeeper in the run-up converted at 57%. Takers who held eye contact converted at 73%. Jordet attributes this to 'self-regulation under pressure' — confident takers do not look away.

3. 3Finding 3

   Public-pressure career impact

   Takers whose national federation had a recent shootout loss converted 6 percentage points lower than takers from federations with recent wins. The 'historical-burden' effect is real and persistent — Jordet (2011) called it the strongest non-skill predictor of conversion.

The England research department, per The Athletic's 2021 reporting, built its entire shootout protocol around eliminating Jordet's three risk factors: take your time, don't look at the keeper unless you're confident, and rehearse the walk so the federation's history doesn't enter your head.

Goalkeeper homework: the notebook era

Three goalkeepers in the WC26 field have public reputations as penalty researchers:

• Emiliano Martínez (Argentina) — Carries a printed dossier of opposition takers, by foot-of-preference and recent attempts. Per The Athletic, his prep includes video review of every taker's last 10 penalties at club level.
• Yassine Bounou (Morocco) — Worked with Spanish goalkeeping coach José Manuel Ochotorena before the 2022 World Cup; the prep included specific cue cards for Sergio Busquets and Pablo Sarabia that produced two saves in the R16.
• Jordan Pickford (England) — The original water-bottle-notebook, now mostly retired in favour of digital dossiers but still printed for the dressing room. England's penalty research staff has expanded under Tuchel.

The other key data point: shootout goalkeeper save rates are clustered tightly around 18-22% across the elite international level. The federations that get above that — Argentina (24%), Croatia (28%), Morocco (33% with Bounou) — do so via taker-side preparation that forces sub-optimal placements, not via athleticism on the line.

What we expect at WC26

A few testable forecasts for the tournament, derived from the data above:

1. At least 3 shootouts in the knockout stages. The 2022 tournament produced 4 shootouts in 16 knockout matches. The 48-team format's expanded R32 adds another knockout round (32 → 16) — so expect 4–6 shootouts total.
2. Argentina favoured in any shootout they enter. The 4-0 record since 2018 is the largest in the field, the Martínez factor remains, and the taker-order discipline is now institutional.
3. England, Spain, Brazil all credible in shootouts. The infrastructure exists, the conversion numbers are real, and the historical burden is — for England at least — measurably reduced.
4. Avoid penalty bets on Scotland, NZ, Iraq, Qatar. The samples are small but the conversion rates and lack of shootout experience point in the same direction.
5. Morocco are the dark-horse shootout favourite. Bounou's save rate is genuinely elite. If Morocco draws extra-time games, the data is on their side.

Cross-reads

If you reached this piece looking for a deeper dive on individual shootout mechanics, see our Extra-Time and Penalties Predictor and the standalone Penalty Shootout Simulator. For tournament-level tiebreaker logic (head-to-head, goal difference, fair-play points), the Tiebreaker Math explainer covers the full FIFA hierarchy.

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