A penalty kick (also known as penalty or spot kick) is a type of direct free kick in association football, taken from 12 yards (approximately 11 metres) out from the goal.
Penalty kicks are performed during normal play. Similar kicks are made in a penalty shootout in some tournaments to determine which team is victorious after a drawn match; though similar in procedure, these are not penalty kicks and are governed by slightly different rules.
In practice, penalties are converted to goals more often than not, even against world class goalkeepers. This means that penalty awards are often decisive, especially in low-scoring games. Missed penalty kicks are often demoralizing to players because it is an easy opportunity to score.
Read more about Penalty Kick: Award, Procedure, Tap Penalty, Infringements, Tactics, Gamesmanship, History
Famous quotes containing the words penalty and/or kick:
“No: until I want the protection of Massachusetts to be extended to me in some distant Southern port, where my liberty is endangered, or until I am bent solely on building up an estate at home by peaceful enterprise, I can afford to refuse allegiance to Massachusetts, and her right to my property and life. It costs me less in every sense to incur the penalty of disobedience to the State than it would to obey. I should feel as if I were worth less in that case.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may kick it about all day like a football, and it will be round and full at evening.”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)