Penalty kick
A penalty kick is awarded when a player commits, inside their own penalty area, an offence punishable by a direct free kick. It is taken 11 metres (12 yards) from goal with only the goalkeeper to beat, and is converted around 75–80% of the time.
A penalty punishes an offence (holding, a reckless tackle, handball…) committed by a defender inside their own penalty area. The ball is placed on the penalty mark, 11 metres (12 yards) from the goal line. The goalkeeper must stay on the line, with at least part of one foot on or level with it, until the ball is kicked; the other players stand outside the area and the arc, at least 9.15 m (10 yards) from the mark. The taker must kick the ball forward and cannot touch it again before another player does. In open play, if the goalkeeper parries it, the ball is live and can be followed up.
Historically, around 75–80% of penalties are scored in the major leagues. Expected goals models therefore give them a fixed value of about 0.76 to 0.79 goals, far higher than an ordinary chance from open play. Since the introduction of the video assistant referee (VAR), penalties have become slightly more frequent in several leagues.
There are two traps in analysis. First, a team’s xG can be inflated by one or two penalties, which says nothing about its ability to create chances: hence npxG, non-penalty xG. Second, penalty goals remain rare and hard to predict match by match. The designated taker matters too: a reliable specialist raises a player’s chance of scoring at any time in the match.
Example
A team racks up 1.9 xG in a match, including a penalty valued at 0.76: excluding penalties (npxG), it produced only 1.9 − 0.76 = 1.14 xG. Over a season, 8 penalties taken with a 78% success rate yield on average 8 × 0.78 ≈ 6.2 goals.
How Elofoot uses it
In the AI analysis, Elofoot estimates the probability that at least one goal is scored from a penalty in the match: 1 − e^(−0.10 × total expected goals). For a match with 2.6 expected goals in total, that gives 1 − e^(−0.26) ≈ 22.9%. The 0.10 rate is the same for every match: only the total of expected goals moves this probability.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the success rate of a penalty?
- Around 75–80% in the major leagues, depending on the season and the study. That is why a penalty is worth about 0.76 to 0.79 xG.
- How far is a penalty taken from goal?
- 11 metres (12 yards) from the goal line, from the penalty mark. All other players must be at least 9.15 m (10 yards) from the mark, outside the area.
- Are penalties included in xG?
- Yes, in standard xG. npxG (non-penalty xG) excludes them to better measure a team’s ability to create chances from open play and set pieces.
- What is the difference between a penalty and a shoot-out kick?
- A penalty punishes a foul during the match and the ball stays live after the kick. A shoot-out kick is part of a tie-break after the match, with no follow-up allowed, and does not count in the match score.
See also
Go further
Put these concepts into practice with our AI football match prediction.
Predict a match for free