Decision under psychological pressure: The shooter's anxiety at the penalty kick

The paper analyses sequences of penalty kicks during football shoot-outs in French cup competitions. We consider in detail the psychological effects to which the kicker is subject: the fear of winning, the fear of losing, the expected outcomes and how much is at stake. Our main conclusion is that the performance (the probability of scoring) is negatively affected by both what is at stake (the impact of my scoring on the expected probability that my team will eventually win) and the difficulty of the situation (the ex ante probability of my team eventually losing). We find no advantage for the team that takes the first kick.