In the Old World, the idea of “shootout as lottery” seems deeply ingrained.

When Real Madrid and Bayern Munich went to a shootout tonight in the semifinals of the Champions League, one of the British commentators on the English-language broadcast of the game, on the Al Jazeera network, trotted out those exact words.

“Now it goes to the lottery that is the shootout.” (Insert own “oh, dear, this is out of our hands now” voice.)

Doesn’t it seem as if that must be false? Surely, enough evidence must now exist that trends can be established.

Well, actually, yes. There have been studies, and trends have been noticed. And we will now tell you about some of them.

This web page seems to do a good job of collating shootout analysis over the past decade.

And it seems clear it’s not the “throw up your hands and hope” exercise that so many coaches seem to believe it is.

Some of the suggestions:

1. The history of players converting penalties shows that it becomes more difficult to score as the shootout progresses. The first shooter in this study converted at an 86.6 percent rate, but the conversion percentage dropped steadily to the fourth shooter, whose percentage was 72.5.

Thus, it may be a better idea for your fifth-best shooter to go first, and your perceived ace to go fourth or fifth.

2. Studies seem to indicate that young players are better in shootouts than older players, and the break seems to be from age 23 and up.

Perhaps the single most-confident shooter in the Madrid-Bayern shootout was the Bayern defender David Alaba, a left-back, who opened the shootout with a decisive shot into the corner. I doubt any of us watching thought he would miss, and he did not. Alaba is 19.

3. Also, it seems clear that players who have been on the field for 30 minutes or less have a higher rate of successful shots. Makes sense. Guys who have been out there for 120 minutes are likely to be exhausted, and that impacts their PK-taking abilities. It was Vince Lombardi who said: “Fatigue makes cowards of us all.”

4. This perhaps requires the painful reality of game experience, but some players seem to shrink from the moment, and their distress is signaled by shooting too quickly — such as poor Sergio Ramos, Madrid’s fourth shooter, whose attempt went over the bar by about six feet and was still rising when it landed among the fans, perhaps 30 feet off the ground. It was a pathetic attempt.

A study suggests a quick shot is a sign of aversion, of someone who just wants this horrible event to be over. Now the football world knows that Sergio Ramos is not a guy you want in a shootout.

5) Another study showed that forwards (83.1 percent) convert penalties at a higher rate than midfielders (79.6), who convert at a higher rate than defenders (73.6).

Thus, sending up Sergio Ramos for what proved to be a decisive miss apparently was a patent blunder by Jose Mourinho, the Real Madrid coach who doesn’t blush at being called “The Special One.”

Ramos is 26, he was shooting fourth, he is a defender and he had played all 120 minutes. Mourinho could not have chosen a worse player to take that kick, and that is a reason why Madrid lost the shootout 3-1.

6. Another study suggested that stopping penalties is a skill, not a matter of guesswork, and observing results as well as practice will make that clear. Thus, if your best PK-stopper is not your starter, you may want to slip him into the game in the late minutes. (Though this may be overwhelmed by a preference to have fresh players, attack players, in the match for a shootout.)

7. Distress by a shooter also is shown by those who seem intent on waiting for the goalkeeper to commit to one side or the other. A delay or a stutter step, on the run-up (Sergio Ramos, again) reduces the likelihood of the ball going into the net.

What all this information makes clear … is that a shootout is most certainly not a lottery.

You improve your chances of winning by giving the duty to young players, fresh players and forwards, who take their time but don’t hesitate on the approach, and by saving your best shooter for the fourth or even fifth position. (I would recommend fourth, because a significant fraction of shootouts do not reach the fifth shooter.)

The notion that coaches are helpless pawns during a shootout — that’s sloppy thinking, with no statistical proof to back it up.

Insisting it is all about chance is what losers talk about after it is over.