Geir Jordet holds a PhD. in soccer and psychology and teaches and conducts research on psychology and elite performance at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences.Penalties have never been more important to a World Cup.The 2022 final was decided by them. There was the shootout that settled the final between Argentina and France, the three other penalties awarded in standard play in the same match, and the four other shootouts that decided knockout matches.With the expansion to 48 teams in 2026, this means an extra 16 chances of a penalty shootout. Therefore, it’s never been more important to be good at taking penalties.So who are the best penalty takers at this World Cup?To come up with a list of the top 10 men from 12 yards, my team and I put together a spreadsheet with every single team’s penalty takers. We filtered away penalties taken in friendlies and in youth games, to leave only official senior matches.And based on that, we ranked all 535 players with penalty kicks on goal percentage. We then prioritised those who have taken a high number of kicks, before concentrating on those who have scored significantly above the mean, which for these World Cup players is a conversion rate of 81 per cent.Get free access to the most comprehensive World Cup coverage in The Athletic app.That’s when I left the hard numbers and looked at this list of filtered players to rank them according to a few other factors, both objective and subjective. As well as a player’s overall record and the level of play and opposing goalkeepers, their record over the past two years was a major factor (being good recently is more important than being good five years ago). Their style, how they approach penalties, the robustness of their stress-coping protocol — it’s not just whether they score, but also how they score — were other considerations.From all of that, this list was born.A quick word on two notable absentees: Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. They have both taken an impressive number of penalties over their careers: 133 and an