Do penalty shoot-out wins count as wins or draws in record runs?

If you're a neutral watching a game, a penalty shoot-out can be one of the most exciting moments in football.

If you're a supporter of either team involved in a shoot-out that will determine progress to the next state of the competition, however – or even award victory in a final – they can be obscenely painful and nerve-wracking.

But are successful penalty shoot-out victories counted as "wins" when counting overall club victories, and are penalties converted in shoot-outs considered proper "goals" as part of a player's individual scoring record? Goal takes a look.

Is a penalty shoot-out considered a win or a draw?

As far as official statistical purposes go, the penalty shoot-out itself is most often considered separate from the original match that it follows.

A single-legged knockout game that requires a penalty shoot-out to determine the result, however, is considered a draw for both teams, regardless of who won the shoot-out.

Two-legged fixtures are considered either as two draws, or sometimes one win and one loss.

So if a team is tallying up their number of consecutive wins without a loss, they might be tempted to include a game they won through a penalty shoot-out, though it would be an unofficial total (they could use an asterisk to denote the penalty shoot-out victory). But for official statistical purposes, penalty shoot-outs are not counted towards record runs.

Do penalties in shoot-outs count towards official goal totals?

Penalties scored during shoot-outs are not counted towards goals scored by individual players in their goal records, or for domestic and international top-scorer prizes such as the Premier League Golden Boot or the European Golden Shoe.

Penalties that are scored in regular time or extra time, however, are still counted towards individual goal-scoring tallies.

How do penalty shoot-outs work?

Penalty shoot-outs only take place during knockout tournaments, such as the last 16 of a major international competition like the World Cup, Euros or club competition like the Champions League.

They are tie-breakers used to determine the winner of the game if, by the end of regulation or extra time the score is still even. Only one team is able to progress to the next stage.