Is this the worst EURO ever for penalties?

What do Mesut Özil, Cristiano Ronaldo, Sergio Ramos and Aleksandar Dragović have in common? Answer: they all failed from the spot at UEFA EURO 2016.

Germany and Italy's epic quarter-final shoot-out on Saturday was something of an object lesson in how not to take penalties, with seven of the 18 attempts saved or missed. It equalled the record length of a EURO finals shoot-out, the Azzurri losing 9-8 to Czechoslovakia in the 1980 third-place play-off. Same number of kicks, maybe, but compare the conversion rate (Italy were edged out 6-5 in Bordeaux).

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Shoot-out kicks in France had been decent enough until that weekend encounter, and even now the statistics (37 taken, 28 scored – a 76% conversion rate) are pretty decent. These, after all, are often penalties taken by players who do not usually perform such duties at club or international level.

However, the same does not apply to spot kicks awarded during regulation time: with only seven from a possible 11 finding the net, goalkeepers (and indeed their inanimate friends, goalposts) have had a particularly successful tournament. With a conversion rate of 63.3%, this is the worst EURO for designated penalty-takers since 1972, when one of the two finals kicks was missed.

Regulation-time penalty conversion in EUROs.
1960: 1 taken, 0 scored – 0%
1964: 1 taken, 1 scored – 100%
1968: 0 taken
1972: 2 taken, 1 scored – 50%
1976: 0 taken
1980: 6 taken, 5 scored – 83.3%
1984: 6 taken, 5 scored – 83.3%
1988: 2 taken, 2 scored – 100%
1992: 3 taken, 3 scored – 100%
1996: 8 taken, 6 scored – 75%
2000: 11 taken, 8 scored – 72.7%
2004: 8 taken, 7 scored – 87.5%
2008: 5 taken, 4 scored – 80%
2012: 4 taken, 3 scored – 75%
2016: 11 taken, 7 scored – 63.6%

Average regulation-time penalty conversion in all EUROs
68 taken, 52 scored – 76.5%