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Picture the scene: Your nation has made it to the 2014 World Cup Final and the game has gone to a penalty shootout.

In dramatic fashion your opponents miss a spot-kick giving your captain the chance to win the tournament, but what are the odds on him scoring? As it turns out, exceedingly high.

Not only does he have an area bigger than a cargo container to aim for, but the slow reaction times of any given person compared to a kicked ball in tandem with psychological preparation should - should - seen him put the ball away with ease.

At least, that's the theory.

Researchers at Brunel University in London have found that the most skilled goalkeepers can guess the right way in a penalty 70 per cent of the time, but other factors mean they'll only save it a quarter of the time such as Cavani's successful penalty against Costa Rica on 14 June (shown)

So far in the 2014 Brazil World cup six penalties have been given - and all six have been scored.

And in the season just gone, in the English Premier League. only 14 of 87 penalties were missed or saved.

But what makes penalties so hard to stop? The answer lies in the deceivingly large size of a goal, the short amount of time available to a keeper to react, and psychological mind games.

'If the player hits the ball hard enough the goalkeeper has very little chance of saving it,' Professor of Sport and Learning at the University of Wolverhampton Andrew Lane told MailOnline.

'Penalty taking is all about managing stress; players need to have overlearned the skill and practiced in stressful conditions; they need make their mind up and stick to that decision.'

But there is good news for goalkeepers - those that are exceptionally gifted have a significant edge over their colleagues.

In a study by Brunel University in London they found that World Class footballers can anticipate the actions of an opponent up to 80 milliseconds before they move.

That means that as England's Joe Hart stares down Germany's Thomas Muller, his brain will automatically notice minute details in the striker's run up that gives him an indication as to which way he's going to shoot.

Some goalkeepers come off their line when a penalty is being taken (Sevilla keeper Cardozo is seen making a save here) to reduce the area a player has to score, at the expense of having less reaction time. Doing so, however, is not technically legal and if a keeper comes too far of his line the penalty will be retaken

In fact, the researchers working with the Football Association found skilled players could anticipate the actions of their opponent 70 per cent of the time, compared to just 52 per cent for less skilled players.

'The smallest margins can make the difference between winning and losing,' said Brunel Professor Mark Williams, who was behind the Anticipation Training research.

'As a result of extensive training and experience on the pitch, the top players have developed high-refined perceptual and cognitive skills that enable them to anticipate exactly what an opponent will do ahead of the act itself.'

Skilled goalkeepers apparently spend more time studying the face of the penalty taker and can fixate on the motion of a kicker's legs moments before he touches the ball.

For a keeper such as Joe Hart, according to Williams, his 'visual system is finely attuned to picking up information from the bodily movements of an opponent as well as the penalty taker's preferred tendencies for kick placement.'

And he added: 'This research shows that those players who practice their art and train hardest have the best chance of success.'

Some players stutter their run-up to make the keeper commit to a direction first before kicking the other way. Neymar attempted this in the opening came of World Cup 2014 for Brazil but, although Croatia goalkeeper Pletikosa went the right way, he didn't have time to get enough behind the ball to save it

That research is backed up a study by ESPN's Sports Science on penalty kicks for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

They found that goalkeepers were able to guess the direction of the ball correctly 57 per cent of the time.

But this is where the good news stops for goal keepers; because of the time it takes to move, only 22 per cent of those shots were saved.

The reason for this is that no amount of psychological preparation can help if a penalty taker knows what he's doing.

On average a ball kicked in a penalty travels at about 70 mph (112km/h), according to Business Insider.

With the penalty spot 36ft (11 metres) from the goal, this means it will take the ball less than half a second to reach the net.

That gives the goalkeeper around 700 milliseconds to look which way the ball is going, decide which way to jump and move his body in that direction.

The penalty spot is 36 feet (11 metres) from the goal. The average speed of a penalty kick is 70 miles (112 kilometres) per hour, which gives the goalkeeper about 700 milliseconds to save it. However it takes most almost a second to do so - meaning they have to move earlier

In reality it takes the goalkeeper up to a second to watch the ball and then jump in its direction – by which the ball will already be nestled in the net, providing the player shot to the side.

Instead, what most goalkeepers do is begin their jump and movement before the kick is taken.

This leads to some players, such as Brazil's Neymar in their recent game against Croatia, to stutter their run-up and entice the keeper to move before they've kicked the ball, allowing them to shoot the other way.

The short amount of time available for a keeper to react and then begin his jump means the players have a huge advantage.

But it's not just human biology that hampers goalkeepers – it's the size of the goal, too.

A football goal is 24 ft (7.3 metres) wide and eight feet (2.4 metres) tall, giving It an area of 192 square feet (17.9 square metres).

Covering this entire area, bigger than a cargo container, is not easy.

This, combined with the short amount of time available, shows just how difficult it is for goalkeepers to save a penalty.

Another factor working against goalkeepers is the sheer size of the goal. Football goals have a total area of 192 square feet (17.9 square metres) into which a player can shoot and, with the ball starting just 36ft (11 metres) away, it gives the goalkeeper little time to make a save (stock image shown)

And that's not all; a study by the University of British Columbia (UBC) found that 'game theory' played an important part in deciding the outcome of a penalty kick.

For those unfamiliar with game theory it's the suggestion that opponents in any scenario, from war to chess, will follow predictable strategies to try and outwit each other.

According to associate professor in UBC's Department of Computer Science Kevin Leyton-Brown the world's top players such as Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Iker Casillas are not just world-class athletes, but also skilled and rational decision-makers as well.

Kickers and goalies have to make decisions simultaneously because things happen so fast. They have to decide to go right or left or in the middle.

On top of that, 'kickers are usually better at kicking to one side than the other,' according to the researchers.

'You would think that the kicker would always kick to his stronger side, but if he did the goalie would always jump to that side and the kicker would be worse off.

'So a kicker, like someone who bluffs in poker, sometimes has to pick the lesser option and kick to his weak side to make goalies uncertain of what he's going to do.

'What researchers found when they looked at this publicly available data was that kickers and goalies usually pick their equilibrium strategies.

'Kickers kick to their weak side just often enough so that the goalie doesn't always want to jump the same way. Likewise, goalies picked an equilibrium strategy for blocking shots.'

All of this combined shows how much of an art form saving or scoring a penalty really is.

Perhaps teams can have a new excuse if they come to failing in penalty shoot-out again - it's simply science and maths working against the team.