There are few situations in sport that are as tense as when a footballer steps up to take a penalty from the spot kick.
Elevate that situation to be at a World Cup and the stakes don't get much higher with the hopes of a whole nation sat on the player's shoulders.
With the 2018 World Cup in Russia seeing the most penalties ever awarded at a single edition in competition history, the 2022 edition could follow suit especially with the use of VAR which inflated those amounts four years ago.
Below we look at which player is likely to step up first for each nation at the 2022 tournament when called up and assess their previous success rate from the spot for both club and country.
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List of penalty takers for each nation at the 2022 World Cup
Although it's impossible to know for certain which player will step up when a penalty is awarded at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, here's our list of players that we expect to be picked first by each national team manager if needed during the tournament:
| Nation | Main penalty taker | Success rate for national team* | Success rate for club* |
| Argentina | Lionel Messi | 79% (19 of 24) | 78.5% (95 of 121) |
| Australia | Jason Cummings | 100% (1 of 1) | 86.3% (19 of 22) |
| Belgium | Romelu Lukaku | 100% (5 of 5) | 83.3% (25 of 30) |
| Brazil | Neymar | 88% (23 of 26) | 80.9% (51 of 63) |
| Cameroon | Vincent Aboubakar | 100% (5 of 5) | 100% (15 of 15) |
| Canada | Junior Hoilett | 75% (3 of 4) | 40% (2 of 5) |
| Costa Rica | Celso Borges | 80% (4 of 5) | 70% (7 of 10) |
| Croatia | Luka Modric | 72.7% (8 of 11) | 100% (12 of 12) |
| Denmark | Christian Eriksen | 85.7% (12 of 14) | N/A |
| Ecuador | Enner Valencia | 62.5% (5 of 8) | 75% (21 of 28) |
| England | Harry Kane | 84.2% (16 of 19) | 84.7% (39 of 46) |
| France | Kylian Mbappe | 75% (3 of 4) | 82.6% (19 of 23) |
| Germany | Ilkay Gundogan | 100% (6 of 6) | 75% (6 of 8) |
| Ghana | Jordan Ayew | 100% (3 of 3) | 100% (7 of 7) |
| Iran | Karim Ansarifard | 66% (2 of 3) | 88.8% (8 of 9) |
| Japan | Takumi Minamino | 100% (2 of 2) | N/A |
| Mexico | Raul Jimenez | 92.3% (12 of 13) | 95% (19 of 20) |
| Morocco | Sofiane Boufal | 100% (3 of 3) | 100% (9 of 9) |
| Netherlands | Memphis Depay | 76.9% (10 of 13) | 75.9% (22 of 29) |
| Poland | Robert Lewandowski | 92.3% (12 of 13) | 89.4% (59 of 66) |
| Portugal | Cristiano Ronaldo | 76.1% (16 of 21) | 85.4% (129 of 151) |
| Qatar | Akram Afif | 83.3% (5 of 6) | 100% (10 of 10) |
| Saudi Arabia | Salem Al-Dawsari | 60% (3 of 5) | 100% (6 of 6) |
| Senegal | Sadio Mane | 78.6% (11 of 14) | 25% (1 of 4) |
| Serbia | Aleksandar Mitrovic | 83.3% (5 of 6) | 70.4% (19 of 27) |
| South Korea | Son Heung-Min | 62.5% (5 of 8) | 66% (2 of 3) |
| Spain | Alvaro Morata | 80% (4 of 5) | 90.9% (10 of 11) |
| Switzerland | Ricardo Rodriguez | 60% (6 of 10) | 88.8% (16 of 18) |
| Tunisia | Wahbi Khazri | 50% (4 of 8) | 90.5% (19 of 21) |
| Uruguay | Luis Suarez | 93.3% (14 of 15) | 79.2% (38 of 48) |
| USA | Christian Pulisic | 100% (6 of 6) | N/A |
| Wales | Gareth Bale | 75% (6 of 8) | 83.3% (5 of 6) |
* Stats correct as of start of Qatar 2022
2022 World Cup penalty record
This list will be updated following the awarding and subsequent outcome of every penalty in normal play at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar (excluding penalty shootouts).
| Player | Fixture | Outcome |
| Enner Valencia | Ecuador v Qatar | Scored |
| Mehdi Taremi | Iran v England | Scored |
| Gareth Bale | Wales v USA | Scored |
| Lionel Messi | Argentina v Saudi Arabia | Scored |
| Robert Lewandowski | Poland v Mexico | Missed |
| Ferran Torres | Spain v Costa Rica | Scored |
| Ilkay Gundogan | Germany v Japanese | Scored |
| Alphonso Davis | Belgium v Canada | Missed |
| Cristiano Ronaldo | Portugal v Ghana | Scored |
| Salem Al Dawasri | Saudi Arabia v Poland | Missed |
| Bruno Fernandes | Portugal vs Uruguay | Scored |
| Ismaila Sarr | Senegal vs Ecuador | Scored |
| Lionel Messi | Argentina vs Poland | Missed |
| Andre Ayew | Ghana vs Uruguay | Missed |
| Robert Lewandowski | Poland vs France | Scored |
| Neymar | Brazil vs South Korea | Scored |
| Lionel Messi | Argentina vs Netherlands | Scored |
| Harry Kane | England vs France | Scored |
| Harry Kane | England vs France | Missed |
| Lionel Messi | Argentina vs Croatia | Scored |
| Lionel Messi | Argentina vs France | Scored |
| Kylian Mbappe | France vs Argentina | Scored |
| Kylian Mbappe | France vs Argentina | Scored |
How many penalties were awarded at the 2018 World Cup?
Forever remembered as the first World Cup to introduce VAR, it perhaps isn't surprising therefore that the 2018 World Cup in Russia set all sorts of penalty records across competition history.
Remarkably, the 2018 edition saw 24 penalties awarded in the group stage alone, more than any other full tournament combined throughout history as referees grappled with the still new technology and rules surrounding spot kicks.
In the end, 29 penalties were awarded during the tournament altogether, 11 more than any other edition had ever seen previously.
How many penalties were awarded at the 2022 World Cup?
Working on an average of penalties awarded across the last 10 World Cup tournaments, the 2022 edition in Qatar was projected to be likely to see around 17 penalties given by referees.
In reality, we actually got 23, thanks in no small part to the three in the final.
Amount of penalties awarded at the last 10 World Cups (prior to Qatar 2022)
| Tournament | Penalties awarded |
| 1982 | 10 |
| 1986 | 16 |
| 1990 | 18 |
| 1994 | 15 |
| 1998 | 18 |
| 2002 | 18 |
| 2006 | 17 |
| 2010 | 14 |
| 2014 | 13 |
| 2018 | 29 |
Has the World Cup ever been won on penalties before?
The 2022 final marked one of the rare occasions that a final of the World Cup had been settled on penalties.
Since the inaugural World Cup in 1930, there have been 22 finals to date, 14 of which have been decided in normal time.
An additional five of those matches have been settled during extra time — including three of the last four World Cup finals — which means that Qatar 2022 marked the third time the title was won via a penalty shootout.
The first of those came during the 1994 World Cup final between Brazil and Italy in which the South American side came out victorious.
Romario, Branco and Dunga all scored for the record five-time World Cup champions, though it was Italian midfielder Roberto Baggio who made the headlines for all the wrong reasons, missing the crucial penalty by chipping over the bar.
The second World Cup final to be won on penalties came in 2006 when Italy defeated France 5-3 on spot kicks at the Olympiastadion in Berlin.
In a match that will always be remembered for Zinedine Zidane's famous headbutt, it was defender Fabio Grosso who scored the vital penalty for Italy to send the trophy home to the European nation for the fourth time.