{"id":761047,"date":"2026-07-13T20:50:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T20:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/761047\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T20:50:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T20:50:10","slug":"survey-finds-24-of-american-men-believe-they-could-convert-a-world-cup-penalty-kick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/761047\/","title":{"rendered":"Survey finds 24% of American men believe they could convert a World Cup penalty kick"},"content":{"rendered":"

The World Cup on US soil apparently has American men thinking rather highly of their soccer abilities \u2014 with nearly a quarter of them saying they were confident they could \u201cdefinitely or probably\u201d score on a penalty kick in a World Cup match<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The YouGov poll quizzed American men and women across several age cohorts \u2014 and even political affiliations \u2014 and the findings were interesting.<\/p>\n

Overall just 19% of US adults believed they could score on a penalty kick, with 15% of women and 24% of men saying they believed they could pull it off. Sammy Kogan\/The Canadian Press via AP<\/p>\n

Overall, approximately one in five (19%) of US adults believed they could score on a penalty kick, where the ball is positioned 12 yards from the goal line \u2014 with 15% of women and 24% of men saying they could pull it off.<\/p>\n

Those answering in the affirmative were most densely concentrated among those in the 18-29 age bracket, where a whopping 41% of men said they would score if given the chance<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The confidence level increased among younger age brackets, with 41% of American men age 18-19 saying they could score compared to just 23% of women in the same age group. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, around a quarter (23%) of women in that age group said the same.<\/p>\n

Among respondents aged 30-44, 32% of men and 19% of women expressed confidence in their ability to sneak a penalty shot past the goalie.<\/p>\n

The numbers trail off significantly from there, with just 18% of men and 10% of women in the 45-64 cohort making the audacious claim \u2014 and bottoming out in the 65-and-over bracket, where just 11% of men and 6% of women believe they could score.<\/p>\n

Republicans were significantly more likely to believe in their abilities to score on a penalty kick, with 58% of Republican men under 45 believing they could score on a penalty kick compared to just 28% of Democrats. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Professional-level athletes typically convert 71-79% of penalties, according to a study published in the British science journal Nature<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When it comes to the YouGov survey, major differences came to the fore when the research company put the same question to people by political affiliation \u2014 with 58% of Republican men under 45 believing they could score on a penalty kick compared to just 28% of Democratic men and 26% of Independent men of the same age.<\/p>\n

The inflated sense of soccer skills among Republicans carried over to women, with 34% of GOP women under 45 asserting they could do the deed compared to 21% of young Democratic women and just 14% of Independents.<\/p>\n

YouGov points out that there were no statistically significant differences within the same groups in the 45-and-over age bracket.<\/p>\n

The survey was conducted online July 9-10, polling 6,297 US adults and with a margin of error of approximately 1.5%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The World Cup on US soil apparently has American men thinking rather highly of their soccer abilities \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":761048,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[6394,403,99,64285,194,132455,153412],"class_list":["post-761047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-polls","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-surveys","tag-us-news","tag-us-soccer","tag-world-cup-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=761047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/761048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=761047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=761047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=761047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}