PK battles are the last thing almost any strong team wants to encounter, as it is a more lucky way of deciding the winner, but although they don't want to encounter it, most of the teams will still do a PK battle rehearsal in order to avoid the upcoming battle when they are advancing to the final knockout stage, including testing which players have a better hitting rate and what sequence of play is more likely to win the match.

One of the more famous PK battles in the international arena is last year's UEFA Euro final. England's 55 years of hopes for an international title were finally buried on their home turf, and manager Southgate was criticised after the match for the order and selection of his PKs, as he put in young players who came on at the end of the match, and it didn't work out.

But despite the loss, Southgate's decision came from the team's hit rate during training PKs, supplemented by references to their record in matches, but let's just say that matches and practice are different after all. In the 2018 World Cup, England won a rare PK battle, beating Colombia to qualify. Southgate also trained his team on PKs beforehand, and England were even preparing for the PK battle 3 months before the World Cup kicked off.

Looking at international tournaments, most teams will prepare for PKs beforehand. After all, football is a special sport, and even if you are stronger than others, you may be forced to draw due to tactical settings, and end up in a PK battle, which will be a one-over-two battle, and it's rare to see a team not preparing for PKs.

As for whether there are teams that don't practise PKs at all, when I searched for information, I found that during the 2018 World Cup, the entire Japan team, including the goalkeepers, thought that they were not good at PKs, and the head coach, Yoshiro Nishino, said that the team didn't practise the 12-yard box in the hope that the match could be decided in the extended game.

Of course, whether or not there was any preparation beforehand is something that only the staff of the team would know in the absence of any special circumstances, and there is no way for people outside the team to know the full picture of what actually happened. As to which method or approach is more sensible, everyone has a different opinion, but as the old saying goes, ‘In all things, it is better to be prepared than to be in a state of emergency. If you are prepared, you may have a little more peace of mind when things go wrong.

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