The knockout stage of the 2026 World Cup is barely a day old. And it already broke something.
Two penalty shootouts on the same day. Ten missed spot-kicks combined. That’s never happened before in the tournament’s history.
It started with Germany against Paraguay. The Round of 32 match finished 1-1 after extra time, which felt like the appetizer. The main course was the shootout. Five players stepped up. Five players missed. Kai Havertz, Nick Woltemade, Antonio Sanabria, Jonathan Tah, Fabián Balbuena — all of them watched their penalties get saved or sail wide. Then José Canale stepped in and ended it for Paraguay. Germany, one of the tournament favorites, was done.
That alone would’ve been a weird footnote. But a few hours later in Monterrey, history decided to repeat itself.
Morocco and the Netherlands also went to penalties after a 1-1 draw. The miss count climbed again. Five more failed attempts between both sides. When Ismael Saibari finally buried his, the Atlas Lions punched their ticket to the last 16. The night ended with ten missed penalties across two shootouts — the most ever in a single World Cup day.
For context: a standard World Cup penalty shootout rarely sees more than two or three misses combined. Five in one shootout ties the all-time high. Two of those happening within hours of each other? Statisticians are still checking their spreadsheets.
What makes this messier is the timing. We’re only in the Round of 32. There are still 27 matches left in this tournament. If this is how the knockout stage starts, the record books might need a new section.
(And yes, fans online had a field day. Memes of haunted goalkeepers and blindfolded strikers flooded social media within minutes of the second shootout ending.)
Neither Germany nor the Netherlands expected to exit this early. Morocco and Paraguay probably didn’t expect to advance this way. But that’s the thing about World Cup penalties — they don’t care about reputation. They just create history.
See you in the next round.
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