Why do the world's best footballers take such poor penalties?

DOHA/LONDON : It is short odds that there will be a penalty shootout at the World Cup over the next two days. There has been at least one in the quarter-finals of the last nine tournaments, peaking in 1986 when three of the four matches went to penalties.

Few of those, however, can have featured a set of spot kicks as poor as in the last-16 games in Qatar. Japan went out with a whimper as Croatia keeper Dominik Livakovic saved tame efforts Takumi Minamino, Kaoru Mitoma and Maya Yoshida were all denied by Livakovic.

Spain coach Luis Enrique was firmly in the "it's not a lottery" camp, saying before his team's last 16 clash with Morocco that he had told the players to take 1,000 practice penalties when with their clubs.

Either they weren't listening or it didn't work as the first three players to attempt one all failed to convert. Pablo Sarabia, who was brought on at the end of the match for just for that job, hit the post while Carlos Soler and Sergio Busquets had their tame efforts comfortably saved to send Morocco through.

Having also gone out at the same stage on penalties to Russia four years ago, it was an inexplicable performance by a team containing some of the most technically talented players in the sport.

The most notable aspect of both 2022 shootouts was the shockingly poor quality of the kicks. The six penalties missed by the losing teams were all struck without much power and most not right in the corner, a strategy that left fans and experts scratching their heads and gave the keepers easy wins.

Data company Nielsen Gracenote has analysed all penalties taken at the last five World Cups, including Qatar, and found that shooting low to the right (50 per cent) or left (68 per cent) has the lowest success rate - and