How to Score a Soccer Penalty

Have you ever missed a penalty kick? Have you ever thought back on that penalty and thought you could do so much better? I have. 

My name is Emma Sellden and I’m a D2 soccer player for Nova Southeastern University. I’ve been playing soccer for over 15 years. I started at only four years old and have played ever since, moving across the Atlantic from Sweden to USA only because of soccer. I’ve been taken multiple soccer penalty kicks in my life. Some of them scored, some I missed. Before I knew what helped me score the penalties, it felt like a lottery. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. From the perspective of the watchers, we know exactly how the penalty should be taken to score. But from the perspective of the person standing at the penalty spot, being the one player to take the penalty, it’s a lot different. It’s so much more than just kicking the ball in the goal. It’s a mind game between you as the penalty taker, and the goalkeeper, the crowd, and your own thoughts. Therefore, I have created a step-to-step guide how to take a penalty, including the mental parts. It may not work for everyone, but it sure does work for me and many others. A penalty kick could either come from a foul in the penalty box or as a part of a penalty shoot-out. My guide is focusing on the first one.

There must be a foul in the box for it to be a penalty. For it to be a foul, someone in the defending team must do something that’s against the soccer rules in their own box. 

Many teams have picked a penalty taker before the game. Other teams don’t. Some people seem to think that the fouled player shouldn’t take the penalty, but that’s not true. The fouled player has the same chance to miss the penalty as if one of the other players. Think about that if you’re the penalty taker and you were the one that got fouled. 

Pick up the ball and place it on the penalty spot. It's important that It's you that put it on the spot. I'f it's someone else, they might have places it wrong and that can affect your penalty kick.

After a certain age, many goalkeepers will try and get in to your mind. There are multiple ways that the goalkeeper could decide doing this by. The best way to get back and get the goalkeeper nervous is to laugh at their poor attempt. Don’t let it show that it affected you. It’s a mental fight between you and the goalkeeper.

People in the crowd are going to cheer for you or against you. Either way is it important to not get disturbed by them. Easier said than done but my best tip is to look at something that doesn’t move. It can be down in the grass, at one of the posts, or anything you find in that moment. 

This is the most critical part of this process. This is the part where you must decide where to shoot the penalty. It is super important to decide where to aim before the referee blows the whistle. This is to lower the stress level in this process- which already is high right now. By looking at the goal you’ll obviously see the goalkeeper. My best tip is to instead of seeing the goalkeeper and trying to avoid shooting the ball on her/him, see the goal and the spots the goalkeeper can’t reach.  If you want to do it, you can count your steps to the ball. You don’t have to do this, but some people might find it calming to count how many steps to take before taking the penalty. Another tip in this moment is to imagine you scoring the penalty and get to celebrate. This might bring you confidence and increase your chance of scoring.

When the referee blows the whistle, don’t stress. Take a deep breath and then go.

Take the shot. Trust yourself and DON’T CHANGE YOUR MIND where to put it during the shot. This will result in a bad penalty- which we’re obviously trying to avoid. 

If you follow all these steps, you hopefully get to celebrate your goal right away. Otherwise, you earn an experience and learned something. Even if you obviously want to score the penalty, you’ll grow as a person and a player. You'll become more experienced by missing the penalty, and hopefully if you follow these steps again, you'll score on your penalty shot next time.