Penalties
A penalty shootout. You and your opponent take it in turns: one kicks while the other keeps, then you swap. Both of you move in secret and the kick is revealed when both moves are in. Five kicks each; if it is level after five, sudden death.
The kick
- Press on the goal to aim; on a phone the crosshair sits above your finger. Let go, and a marker sweeps along the power bar. Tap to stop it on the sweet spot.
- A perfect stop lands the ball exactly where you aimed. Off the sweet spot the ball scatters, and the further off, the wider. The scatter comes from the game's seed, so nobody, including the site, knows where a mistimed ball goes before it is kicked.
- Stop late and the ball is skied: it rises above where you aimed, and from the top corner it goes over. Stop early and the shot is soft: the keeper can gather it from the area next to the one they dived to.
- The goal is eight yards wide and eight feet high, the real one, and a ball that touches a post or the bar has hit the woodwork and does not count.
The dive
- In goal you see the six areas of the goal, three across and two up, from the goalkeeper's side. Press the one to dive to. The areas are named as the kicker sees them, so your right is their left.
- You choose before you see the kick: both moves are secret until both are in. A ball that lands in the area you dived to is saved. Anywhere else in the goal and it is a goal.
- The page shows every kick your opponent has taken so far, where it was aimed and where it went. A kicker with a habit is a kicker you can read.
How a shootout ends
- Five kicks each, taken in turn. If one of you is ahead by more than the other could catch up with the kicks they have left, it ends there.
- Level after five, it is sudden death: one kick each until one scores and the other does not.
- Ten rounds of sudden death still level is a draw, so that a game with a deadline a move cannot go on for ever.
- A player who resigns or misses the move deadline loses the shootout there and then.
Worth knowing before you start
- Every half-kick is one move deadline for both of you: whoever moves first waits for the other, and the clock restarts when the kick is revealed.
- The bot plays at one of three strengths, drawn per game from the seed: how well it stops the bar, and how much it reads your kicks when it is in goal.
- Every landing in a game comes from its seed, which is published when the game ends, so anybody can replay the shootout and check every kick.
The goal's dimensions are the Laws of the Game's, and the order of kicks is a real shootout's. Nothing here is played for money, and the site takes none.
Penalties terms
- sweet spot
- the band on the power bar where a stop lands the ball exactly where it was aimed
- skied
- a ball lifted above its aim by a late stop; from high up it goes over the bar
- soft
- a shot from an early stop, which the keeper can reach from the area next to the one they dived to
- woodwork
- a post or the crossbar; a ball that touches either does not count
- sudden death
- one kick each until one scores and the other does not