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The goal looks so large. The keeper looks so small. For a professional soccer player to get the ball past the opponent and into the target seems not so terribly challenging.
Until there is the element of World Cup pressure added to the situation.
The United States men’s national team enters the knockout rounds of the 2026 FIFA World Cup at San Francisco Bay Area Stadium on Wednesday night against Bosnia and Herzegovina. If the oddsmakers are correct, the USMNT should win in regulation.
If the score is tied at the end of 90 minutes, however, they would need to play an extra half-hour. And if there still is no winner, it would come down to a penalty kick shootout. And so much can happen then. Just ask the members of Germany national team. But you’ll have to call long-distance, because they’re back home in Europe following their elimination by underdog Paraguay.
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One of the elements of a penalty shootout that rarely is considered is how uncommon it is for any of these players to be placed in this position.
Penalty kicks are rare enough in the course of games. There were 11 total granted in 72 group games at this World Cup, and most often when that occurs, it’s fairly obvious which player on each team will be assigned to attempt it. Like, no one is stepping in front of Lionel Messi if Argentina is awarded a penalty and he’s on the field.
So lots of players are forced into this circumstance when nearly all of their experience in such situations is contained to the practice field, where there are not 70,000 fans screaming one way or the other, where there is no pressure beyond whatever invented stakes the coaching staff might try to install. On these days, they don’t advance to the next round of the World Cup or go home based on the shootout results; they head for the showers and then to lunch.
The only penalty shootouts at the club level are those that determine which team advances after tie scores in cup competitions, either domestic or continental. The only ones in international play are in the knockout stages of tournaments.
Has USA been in a World Cup penalty shootout?
The USMNT never has entered a penalty shootout in the World Cup. They went to extra time in the Round of 16 in 2010 against Ghana and 2014 against Belgium, but each time they conceded and lost. In this century, every one of the seven U.S. shootouts have come in the CONCACAF Gold Cup, and only three of those occurred in the past seven years, with the current core group in place.
However, most of the key players were involved in precisely none of those.
In the 2025 Gold Cup quarterfinals against Costa Rica, three of this team’s starters did attempt and convert penalties in the USMNT’s 4-3 shootout victory: midfielders Tyler Adams and Malik Tillman and defender Alex Freeman.
The last time the U.S. lost a shootout, in the 2023 Gold Cup semis, reserve midfielder Christian Roldan was the only member of this World Cup squad to make an attempt. It was saved by Panama’s Orlando Mosquera.
The only members of the regular USMNT starting group who have taken penalties consistently for their clubs are Christian Pulisic, now with AC Milan, and Folarin Balogun, now with AS Monaco. If both were available to participate by the end of 120 minutes combined of regulation and extra time, that would still leave 60 percent of the shootout lineup to fill.
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What would an ideal USMNT shootout look like?
When the Americans defeated Costa Rica in a shootout at the 2025 Gold Cup, goalkeeper Matt Freese stopped three attempts from the opponents. “Penalties are my thing,” he told Fox Sports.
So the USMNT at least can feel confident in the keeper assigned to keep opposing attempts from reaching the net.
The identity of the penalty takers is not so obvious:
Christian Pulisic, forward
Of the 33 goals Pulisic has scored in international competition, four have been from the penalty spot, most famously against Mexico and El Tri legend Memo Ochoa in the June 2021 final of the CONCACAF Nations League.
He missed one attempt for Milan in each of the past two Serie A seasons after starting his pro career with 12 consecutive conversions.
The only question with Pulisic is where he would fall in the order. Would he go first, ostensibly to establish a positive tone for everyone to follow? Or would he be placed at fifth in the order, in case it comes down to the pressure of a final kick? With the number of attempts missed in the first few shootouts at this World Cup – five each in Germany vs. Paraguay and Norway vs. Morocco – it seems leading off is the logical approach.
Folarin Balogun, striker
Balogun has far more familiarity with penalty kicks than anyone on the U.S. roster. But he’s not close to batting 1.000.
He has connected on 17 attempts in his pro career, according to Transfermarkt, with 11 of those coming at France’s Ligue 1 level or in the Coupe de France. He’s also missed eight, although half of those were as a youth player in Arsenal’s system.
He’s coming in hot, though: three of his 13 goals for AS Monaco in Ligue 1 this season were penalties. He has not failed since 2024.
Ricardo Pepi, striker
The one question regarding Pepi’s involvement is whether he would be on the field. He is unlikely to start, barring injury, in any knockout round game.
But he certainly would be the type of player Mauricio Pochettino would place in the game either to help break a tie late or to be available for penalty kicks.
He has attempted 10 in his career, six of those at the Division I level. Overall, he has made eight and missed two, and it’s five makes and one miss with FC Dallas and PSV Eindhoven. He has not missed a regulation-time penalty since 2021.
In shootouts, he converted in the 2020 MLS Playoffs against Portland and for MLS against LigaMX in the 2021 All-Star Game.
Malik Tillman, midfielder
As a senior player in Germany’s Bundesliga, he has had no opportunities. He did convert three as a junior player with Bayern Munich, and in last summer’s Gold Cup had the chance to see both sides of the penalty kick challenge.
In that Gold Cup game against Costa Rica, he was taken down in the area in the 31s minute. He stepped forward to attempt the penalty kick granted for the foul, but he knocked it off the left post. If he’d made that one, there might not have been need for a shootout to decide the winner.
However, that gave Tillman a chance to redeem himself, and he went the same direction with his kick and beat Costa Rica’s legendary keeper Keylor Navas.
Tyler Adams, midfielder
As a defensive midfielder, Adams is not the player who typically would get the opportunity to take penalties. And that’s been true.
He hasn’t been a regular taker since his days playing in USL for the New York Red Bulls II squad, when he went 2-for-2. That was a decade ago.
Adams did attempt the first penalty for the USMNT in that Costa Rica shootout, and he was the first player in that sequence to beat Navas.
Antonee Robinson, defender
It can help in shootouts to vary the strengths of those attempting. For instance, throwing in a lefty.
Robinson attempted one in regulation for Fulham in a game against Wolverhampton Wanderers a little more than a month ago.
“An unlikely penalty taker, to put it mildly,” the NBC announcer called him.
Robinson approached the ball casually, waited for the keeper to dive toward right post, then calmly knocked the ball into the left third of the goal.
He also scored one in an FA Cup shootout against Manchester United, taking the exact same approach.
Chris Richards, defender
Another with limited experience, Richards converted for Crystal Palace against Millwall last September in a shootout to decide a Carabao Cup game.
He’s never attempted one during the course of regulation as a pro.
Alex Freeman, defender
Although Freeman’s penalty record also is not at the highest level, he’s also not so far removed from his successes. He converted twice for Orlando City B in the MLS Next Pro league, but that was only two years ago.
And last summer, in his first significant national team competition, he converted his attempt in that shootout to defeat Costa Rica.
Sebastian Berhalter, midfielder
So adept at free kicks and corners, Berhalter would be a tempting choice in this circumstance.
He made his only two tries for the Vancouver Whitecaps. But when he took the third PK for the USMNT against Costa Rica in last summer’s shootout, following up makes by Adams and Tillman, Berhalter sent his shot sailing over the crossbar.
Hey, that’s literally happened to the best: Roberto Baggio in the 1994 World Cup final, David Beckham at Euro 2004, Landon Donovan in the 2009 MLS Cup final. That’s a hard picture to forget.
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