From the round of 32 onwards, every 2026 World Cup match must produce a winner on the night. Ninety minutes level means thirty more; thirty more level means penalties. Everyone knows that much. The details underneath — who may take a kick, what order, what the goalkeeper may do — are where pub arguments are won and lost.
Extra time is two straight halves of fifteen minutes with a change of ends and no golden goal: the experiment that decided tournaments around the turn of the century was retired in 2004, so a team that concedes in the ninety-first minute of extra time still has time to respond.
How the shootout is set up
The referee chooses the goal — usually after consulting security and pitch conditions, which is why shootouts often happen in front of one set of fans rather than the "fair" end. A coin toss decides which team kicks first, a genuine advantage worth arguing about: teams shooting first win somewhat more often, most likely because trailing in a shootout weighs on the second kicker.
Only players on the pitch at the final whistle of extra time may take part, goalkeepers included. Every outfield player and the keeper must take a kick before anyone kicks twice — the full rotation through eleven takers has been needed at senior tournaments, and coaches who only plan five names have regretted it.
What the goalkeeper may and may not do
The goalkeeper must have at least part of one foot on or level with the goal line when the ball is struck — the law was softened in 2022 from the stricter "both feet" reading precisely because VAR was catching keepers by centimetres. Dancing on the line, waving arms and delaying within reason are legal; touching the crossbar or the netting before the kick, or clearly jumping forward early, is not.
A keeper booked during the shootout for repeated gamesmanship cannot be replaced unless the team still has a substitution available — and since extra time typically exhausts them, the yellow card is a real deterrent rather than a token.
The myth of the lottery
Calling a shootout a lottery is comforting and wrong. Conversion rates are stable enough to reward preparation: teams that practise the walk from the centre circle, assign kicks in advance and study the opposing keeper's habits convert measurably better. Research on tournament shootouts consistently shows the same patterns — rushed run-ups miss more, designated orders beat improvised ones.
The World Cup has been decided on penalties twice — 1994 and 2006 — and with eight knockout rounds now stretching across the 2026 bracket, the odds that the new format's story ends from twelve yards are the highest they have ever been. Somewhere, a federation is already rehearsing.