WIRED⁠38%

World Cup Science: The Science Behind Penalty Shootouts ⁠27%

By Condé Nast⁠0%

6/30/2026, 4:00:00 AM

BS Summary: This article contains 10 faulty reasoning types, including Availability Heuristic, Negativity Bias, and False Dilemma, with Framing Effect as the most egregious example at 33.3% saturation with 29 hits. Analysis detected 185 faulty-reasoning hits from 87 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 31% and a BS Rank of ⁠27% (22,261 of 30,209 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 73.70% of the article peer group.

The World Cup last-32 ties of Germany v Paraguay and the Netherlands v Morocco have both been decided by penalty shootouts. 
Paraguay’s Orlando Gill, Germany’s Manuel Neuer and Morocco’s Yassine Bounou made four saves between them across the two shootouts as Paraguay and Morocco advanced to the last-16. 
But can goalkeepers at the World Cup really react quickly enough to save a penalty, or is it all just guesswork? 
WIRED breaks down the physics behind a perfect penalty save. 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 11.5%Condé Nast: 0.9%WIRED: 1.7%Confirmation Bias11.5%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 0.0%WIRED: 0.6%Anchoring Bias0.0%This article: 31.0%Condé Nast: 1.2%WIRED: 2.7%Availability Heuristic31.0%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 0.8%WIRED: 0.7%Representativeness Heuristic0.0%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 0.1%WIRED: 0.8%Hindsight Bias0.0%This article: 11.5%Condé Nast: 1.5%WIRED: 1.2%Overconfidence Bias11.5%This article: 33.3%Condé Nast: 3.4%WIRED: 3.4%Framing Effect33.3%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 0.0%WIRED: 0.4%Loss Aversion0.0%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 0.1%WIRED: 0.4%Status Quo Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 0.0%WIRED: 0.2%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 1.3%WIRED: 2.0%Optimism Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 1.2%WIRED: 1.2%Pessimism Bias0.0%This article: 24.1%Condé Nast: 4.9%WIRED: 5.2%Negativity Bias24.1%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 0.5%WIRED: 1.0%Self-Serving Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 1.7%WIRED: 0.7%Fundamental Attribution Error0.0%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 0.1%WIRED: 0.2%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 2.3%WIRED: 0.8%In-Group Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 0.1%WIRED: 0.2%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 1.5%WIRED: 1.6%Halo Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 0.0%WIRED: 0.0%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 0.0%WIRED: 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 0.7%WIRED: 0.9%Recency Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 0.3%WIRED: 0.2%Primacy Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 0.0%WIRED: 0.1%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 0.5%WIRED: 0.4%Ad Hominem0.0%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 0.0%WIRED: 0.2%Straw Man0.0%This article: 20.7%Condé Nast: 2.2%WIRED: 2.6%Appeal to Authority20.7%This article: 24.1%Condé Nast: 1.2%WIRED: 1.0%False Dilemma24.1%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 0.5%WIRED: 0.5%Slippery Slope0.0%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 0.1%WIRED: 0.1%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 5.6%WIRED: 3.9%Hasty Generalization0.0%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 0.1%WIRED: 0.1%Red Herring0.0%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 0.6%WIRED: 0.4%Bandwagon0.0%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 2.6%WIRED: 2.5%Appeal to Emotion0.0%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 0.3%WIRED: 0.3%Begging the Question0.0%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 0.7%WIRED: 2.0%Post Hoc (False Cause)0.0%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 0.1%WIRED: 0.1%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 0.0%WIRED: 0.3%Burden of Proof0.0%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 0.1%WIRED: 0.1%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 0.1%WIRED: 0.2%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 2.1%WIRED: 2.9%Anecdotal0.0%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 0.0%WIRED: 0.0%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 11.5%Condé Nast: 1.6%WIRED: 1.1%Ambiguity (Equivocation)11.5%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 0.0%WIRED: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 0.2%WIRED: 0.1%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 0.2%WIRED: 0.1%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 0.0%WIRED: 0.1%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 0.0%WIRED: 0.1%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 0.4%WIRED: 1.0%Unattributed Quote0.0%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 0.6%WIRED: 0.5%Quote-first Misdirection0.0%This article: 20.7%Condé Nast: 2.3%WIRED: 3.2%Biased Writer Voice20.7%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 0.7%WIRED: 0.7%Indoctrination0.0%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 0.9%WIRED: 0.3%Politically Left Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Condé Nast: 0.0%WIRED: 0.1%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 24.1%Condé Nast: 2.7%WIRED: 1.6%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…24.1%

87 words analyzed.

Speakers

1speaker11%attributed speech77writer words
Selected voice

WIRED

100%flagged-word coverage
10 attributed words100% of attributed speech73% writer coverage
0%50.0%100.0%Biased Writer Voice+89.6 ptsWriter: 10.4%WIRED: 100.0%100.0%Attempt to Sell a Product -27.3 ptsWriter: 27.3%WIRED: 0.0%0.0%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

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Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.