Geir Jordet holds a PhD. in soccer and psychology and teaches and conducts research on psychology and elite performance at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences.
Penalties have never been more important to a World Cup.
The 2022 final was decided by them. There was the shootout that settled the final between Argentina and France, the three other penalties awarded in standard play in the same match, and the four other shootouts that decided knockout matches.
With the expansion to 48 teams in 2026, this means an extra 16 chances of a penalty shootout. Therefore, it’s never been more important to be good at taking penalties.
So who are the best penalty takers at this World Cup?
To come up with a list of the top 10 men from 12 yards, my team and I put together a spreadsheet with every single team’s penalty takers. We filtered away penalties taken in friendlies and in youth games, to leave only official senior matches.
And based on that, we ranked all 535 players with penalty kicks on goal percentage. We then prioritised those who have taken a high number of kicks, before concentrating on those who have scored significantly above the mean, which for these World Cup players is a conversion rate of 81 per cent.
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That’s when I left the hard numbers and looked at this list of filtered players to rank them according to a few other factors, both objective and subjective. As well as a player’s overall record and the level of play and opposing goalkeepers, their record over the past two years was a major factor (being good recently is more important than being good five years ago). Their style, how they approach penalties, the robustness of their stress-coping protocol — it’s not just whether they score, but also how they score — were other considerations.
From all of that, this list was born.
A quick word on two notable absentees: Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. They have both taken an impressive number of penalties over their careers: 133 and an
incredible 214, respectively. However, Messi’s numbers are below average, with a conversion rate of 78 per cent. There hasn’t been much movement in those numbers in the past two years, so together with him essentially stepping down a level when he went to MLS, that sends him out of the list.
Ronaldo is slightly harder, because while the same rationale — playing club football at a lower standard — exists, his overall numbers are much better. His conversion rate is 84.6 per cent, which is lower than all but one in the top 10, and looking at his more recent efforts, his numbers are declining, with only 23 goals from his last 30 (so 76.6 per cent).
With that said and those two out, let’s dive into as many secrets as possible about these penalty takers. Here they are, the top 10 penalty takers at the 2026 World Cup, counting down to the one I consider the best…
10. Igor Thiago, Brazil: 85.7 per cent success rate
Igor Thiago of Brentford scores against West Ham (Clive Rose/Getty Images)
He doesn’t have huge experience: he’s only taken 21 penalties in his career, of which he’s scored 18. The numbers are impressive but not top, top, top.
I was considering Kai Havertz for this spot too; his penalty record is flawless with official penalties at the senior level, with 16 hits and no misses, but Havertz has only taken three shots in the last two years. Thiago, on the other hand, has been considerably more active, with 10 penalties this last season, of which he scored nine.
His style has evolved too: when he was at Club Brugge, he used a goalkeeper-independent approach (deciding where to put the penalty without considering what the goalkeeper will do), with mixed success, but when he arrived at Brentford, he adopted a goalkeeper-dependent approach (waiting to see what the keeper does before shooting).
He missed some early on, but his technique has grown, and he progressed tremendously last season and became very consistent.
He now has a robust technique where he makes his shot decision incredibly late, and when goalkeepers adapt by just waiting for his shot before they commit, Thiago has enough power and precision to still make the shot unsavable.
His Achilles heel? He missed a penalty in the 94th minute to make it 2-2 away to Brighton this season, and he still has not proven his penalty prowess under extremely high pressure. Also, his technique is very rigid; how does he react when goalkeepers present him with ingenious fake movements? Time will tell.
9. Hakan Calhanoglu, Turkey: 87.9 per cent
Calhanoglu scores from the spot against Hungary last year (Attila Kisbenedek/AFP via Getty Images)
He’s taken 58 penalties and scored 51. He’s one of these players who varies his technique: sometimes he clearly decides where he’s going beforehand, other times he waits… then sometimes it’s somewhere in-between, where he uses his run-up to keep the goalkeeper on his line.
This type of technical variation is a trend in the top 10. I like that kind of agility and flexibility, and he’s clearly good at it on a high level.
However, compared to the pure goalkeeper-dependent specialists (such as Thiago), Calhanoglu appears more vulnerable when he uses this technique. He observes the goalkeeper prior to this shot, but then puts his gaze down to the ball relatively early before striking it. This means that a goalkeeper can initiate a deception movement relatively early, and still have time to move to the other side.
His goalkeeper-independent shots are more polished, often struck with good pace and precision.
8. Andrej Kramaric, Croatia: 88.2 per cent
Kramaric has the coolest run-up you’ll see, with a bouncy upright step that screams composure. He scored his last 17 penalties in the Bundesliga, although during that run, he missed one in a DFB-Pokal penalty shootout and one for Croatia. He has taken some really high-pressure penalties, and he can do panenkas too. The last two penalties he scored were goalkeeper-independent, then dependent. He alternates with each shot.
Kramaric said in an interview recently that he started taking penalties when he was eight; his father told him to shoot to the right, but he shot to the left. When his father asked him afterwards why he countered his advice, Kramaric replied that the goalkeeper moved to the right, so he went to the left.
Penalties and technical flexibility appear to be in his blood.
7. Kylian Mbappe, France: 81.3 per cent
This was a pick that came in late. In one way, he’s not an obvious choice, because his overall penalty record is relatively average — he has scored 61 from 75 penalties in his career — but he made the list for three reasons.
First, his conversion rate trend has a clear upward trajectory. In the last two years, he has scored 22 of 26 (84.6 per cent) and this season, he has scored 14 from 15 (93,3 per cent).
Second, his achievements under pressure are unparalleled. He took three penalties in the 2022 World Cup final, two in regular play and one in the shootout. All were perfectly executed, against an extraordinarily volatile Emi Martinez, and with the extra pressure of being the only French player who missed in the shootout the year before against Switzerland. This is a person you want in a high-pressure shootout for your team.
Third, I really like the unique way he takes his shots. Whereas a lot of the players on this list will take four, five, or six seconds after the referee has given his signal before stepping up to the ball — which is something I have encouraged for years to cope with stress — Mbappe is a bit of an outlier. He starts his run-up half a second after the whistle. Everything is fast with Mbappe, including his penalty reaction times. However, rushing does not have a negative impact on his performance, as it does with other takers.
Then, there are his panenkas. He’s taken four in his last 19 shots. This recurrent audacity requires something extra, and if you have that in your repertoire, it makes you less predictable.
In general, he tends to look at the ’keeper while he’s running up; sometimes this becomes a pure goalkeeper-dependent technique, other times it’s what I call a ‘goalkeeper-controlling’ technique, using his gaze to communicate to the goalkeeper “I see you when you move”, with the intention that the keeper will commit to a side a bit later, making it harder for him to reach the ball.
His ability to react to and control the goalkeeper is a strength, but it is also his vulnerability. The last two goalkeepers to save Mbappe’s shots were, in different ways, the most actively moving ’keepers against him these past two years. Barcelona’s Wojciech Szczesny tricked Mbappe with a really clever and subtle fake movement on the line, forcing Mbappe’s ’keeper-dependent shot straight into his hands, while Real Sociedad’s Unai Marrero showed unusually high amplitude in his movements from side to side, potentially disturbing Mbappe to deliver a weak shot.
Regardless, Mbappe is a powerful penalty taker.
6. Bruno Fernandes, Portugal: 88.6 per cent
He’s taken 70 kicks and scored 62. In the last two years, he’s scored 13 out of 15. He alternates his technique: the last one was goalkeeper-dependent, the two before that were independent, the two before that were dependent, and he’s also alternated within the same game.
Players are much less predictable than they used to be, and Fernandes shows how it’s done. On occasions when the goalkeeper delays his movement and ends up going correctly against his goalkeeper-dependent technique, Fernandes is agile enough to lift the ball above the keeper. He also spends time getting himself under control, with a long reaction time to the referee whistle, almost five seconds.
His Kryptonite is interrupting factors getting inside his head. When he missed against Aston Villa a few years ago, it was after Martinez had loudly and manipulatively asked why Cristiano Ronaldo was not going to take the penalty.
Bruno Fernandes looks dejected after missing against Villa in 2021 (Gareth Copley/Getty Images)
And when Fernandes bumped into the referee against Fulham in August, he couldn’t get that out of his head for more than half a minute. He stood there staring at the referee and later said it was because the referee did not apologise. His miss against Brentford this season came after a nearly five-minute VAR delay, where multiple opponents could be seen trying to talk to him. Things of this nature frequently seem to occur in those times he has missed.
If you’re able to play a game that gets inside his head, he could be vulnerable.
5. Ivan Toney, England: 93.3 per cent
He’s here, even though he missed two of his last six in Saudi Arabia.
For that reason alone, to have him in the top 10 seems a little bit strange. But there are a couple of mitigating factors. First, his overall record, which is exceptional with 56 penalties scored from 60 taken.
But one of the misses came when he was up against a true specialist, the penalty-taker neutraliser Moroccan ’keeper Yassine Bounou. Bounou has this technique consisting of a double-fake movement, causing goalkeeper-dependent takers, like Toney, to struggle.
Toney took two against Bounou: one went in, just barely; one was saved. Then, with the next kick, Toney radically changed everything. He tried a super quick run-up, in what seemed to be an attempt to surprise and stun the goalkeeper, but the ’keeper easily saved it.
This failed attempt to recover from the Bonou encounter clearly shows how susceptible Toney can be to clever and well-executed goalkeeper fake movements. Then, after that experience, he reverted to his old technique, scored twice, and cemented his spot on this list.
4. Mikael Oyazabal, Spain: 89.1 per cent
Oyazabal has been very good for a long time, starting when he was 21, with a beautiful and effective goalkeeper-dependent technique.
He first showed this in La Liga in 2018, against another young penalty-kick specialist, Unai Simon. He’s since taken 55 kicks and scored 49 of them. In the last two years, he’s scored 19 out of 21 (90.5 per cent). He gets ahead of Toney because, lately, he’s also adopted this very flexible approach. You never know what he’s up to.
This includes what looks like a goalkeeper-dependent shot, which he then hits high and hard, just below the crossbar. Last time, this was done under high pressure, in the 91st minute, to make it 2-2. Conclusion: you have no idea what he’s going to do with each kick, and the goalkeeper won’t either.
Oyarzabal’s goalkeeper-independent technique (left, where he is not looking at his opponent), and goalkeeper-dependent technique
3. Raul Jimenez, Mexico: 97.7 per cent
The top three players could all be No 1.
Jimenez’s stats are amazing: he’s taken 38 kicks, scored 37. That’s an astounding 97.4 per cent success rate. The one shot he missed was against Bounou more than six years ago. His goalkeeper-dependent technique is extreme and annoyingly effective: he incorporates so many of these little stops in his run-up that test the limits of the rules (players are not allowed to stop fully or go back in the run-up).
His technique is so good that it really looks like he stops. Some ’keepers come off their line way too early because of this. He’s also added this feature where, on the rare occasions when a goalkeeper goes in the correct direction, he gives the ball a bit of air, and it goes into the top corner.
The only reason he isn’t even higher on this list is — and this isn’t his fault — that he hasn’t performed his penalty kicks at the very highest level, like in the Champions League or in the World Cup.
He also doesn’t have the flexibility that others have, which makes him somewhat predictable. Thus, he may be stoppable for goalkeepers who resist the temptation to react to his stutters, and instead produce a believable, subtle, yet well-timed fake movement — and then go in the opposite direction.
2. Viktor Gyokeres, Sweden: 92.3%
He’s taken 39 kicks and scored 36, but in the last two years he’s taken 25 kicks and scored 25 kicks. He’s a straight-up goalkeeper-independent: he doesn’t look at the ’keeper at all.
He hits the ball with such pace that his shots are incredibly hard to stop, even if the goalkeeper goes in the right direction. It feels refreshing to have a player like this in the top three. It’s an old-fashioned technique: no fuss, just hit it hard.
It’s obviously ridiculous to ask someone with a perfect record to change, but if Gyokeres can add a layer of variation and unpredictability to his shot technique, he will continue to be unstoppable.
Gyoekeres scores against Bournemouth using his goalkeeper-independent technique (Photo: Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)
1. Harry Kane, England: 88.7 per cent
His overall stats are 115 taken, 102 scored, which puts him at an 88.7% success rate. But in the past two years, he’s at 91.4 per cent. These stats are very high, and he has been consistent for many years.
Kane also gets the top spot because his go-to always has been the goalkeeper-independent approach, but then a couple of years ago he changed his strategy and incorporated the goalkeeper-dependent technique, executed to perfection.
Now, he tends to alternate and can swiftly and elegantly change between the two techniques. Look at the Croatia game a few days ago, where he stuttered on the first goalkeeper-dependent kick; Dominik Livakovic saved but had moved off his line too early, so on the retake Kane just went with his goalkeeper-independent run-up and scored.
Harry Kane, Bayern Munich vs Hoffenheim, February 8th, 2026: two different techniques in 20th minute (left) and 45th minute
Kane has taken so many penalties, but the way he’s still developing is very impressive. Back in the day, as a goalkeeper, to stop Kane you had to go early, because he wouldn’t look up and wouldn’t change his shot. If you made sure you reached the post before the ball, regardless of how early you went, you would save some of them.
Now, Kane’s more unpredictable, highly consistent, and extremely effective. A worthy No 1.
Additional research by Sebastian Høyvik Skjold and Alessandro Mautone. Editorial help by Nick Miller
