Euro 2024: Penalty shootouts set to take center stage as new tactics beckon

Here's a quiz question: What do the 2022 World Cup final, the 2021 African Cup of Nations final, the 2020 European Championship final and the 2016 Copa America final have in common?

Answer: They were all settled by a penalty shootout.

Like it or not, the shootout that tense battle of wills over 12 yards (11 meters) has increasingly become a huge part of soccer, an unavoidable feature of the knockout stage in the biggest competitions.

Added to the laws of the game in 1970, penalty shootouts have marred careers (Roberto Baggio has never gotten over his miss in the 1994 World Cup final), spawned pizza adverts (Gareth Southgate starred in one after his decisive failure from the spot at Euro 1996) and, in Lionel Messi's case at the most recent World Cup, earned a win that definitively secures a player a place in the pantheon of soccer greats.

It's why those who delve into the psychology and science of soccer are perplexed why this tiebreaker system has been and continues to be ...