Should penalties decide football matches?
Columnist
By Adrian Musolino, 31 Mar 2009 Adrian Musolino is a Roar Expert
- Tagged:
- football, John Aloisi, penalties, penalty shootouts
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It is an age-old question and one I pondered with a friend while reflecting on that night in November 2005 and the impact a penalty shoot out had on the development of the game in this country. One thing’s for sure had we lost that shoot out, there would have been a far greater amount of fans criticising football’s version of Russian roulette.
The penalty shoot out is either loathed to the point where some fans don’t even bother watching it claiming it is an arbitrary means of deciding a winner, or loved as great theatre, part of footballs fabric, its history.
One thing is certain, it in no way reflects what has preceded the shoot out in normal and extra time and this is the greatest failing of the system.
But what are the alternatives to a shoot out?
Keep playing, forcing a result one way or another either by golden goal or at specific intervals taking a player from each team off the field to free up the game and create more attacking options?
It would keep the game going and force teams to attack testing the stamina of the players but in an age of calendar congestion such ‘overtime’ wouldn’t be popular with teams.
What of the North American variation of the penalty shootout where a player goes one on one with the goalkeeper, kicking off from half way with a certain time frame, five seconds to get a shot off.
It does at least combine other elements of skill into the equation but it does seem messy and manufactured.
There are so many crazy variations and alternatives to the penalty shoot out but I can’t help thinking the current system would be missed. It is so much part of footballs DNA it’s hard to imagine the other options being universally accepted as any better.
And wouldn’t we miss the drama of the shoot out? Nothing beats the anticipation and excitement of that second as the goalie and penalty tacker stand in position, the moment your heart skips a beat.
It is part of footballs theatre, sometimes tragic, sometimes comical and sometimes triumphant.
Would we remember that night against Uruguay differently if John Aloisi had headed in from a corner in the eightieth minute?
Probably. That penalty kick stopped a nation like few other sporting moments this country has seen.
That culminating moment, the wait, the anticipation, the goose bumps, the ball slamming into the back of the net, the elation and the joy was the result of thirty two years of pain and the drama that only a penalty shoot out can provide.
There was a great study conducted in the UK that showed 84% of fans who are neutrals enjoy watching a shoot out while that number decreases to 33% when their favourite team is involved.
As the study shows there is a perverse enjoyment we get out of the drama of the shoot out, especially when our teams aren’t involved.
It would be a terrible shame if football lost that unique aspect.
Despite its flaws it is great theatre and that’s what we want from sport.
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Savvas Tzionis said | March 31st 2009 @ 7:36am | Report comment
One simple answer would be to get rid of (or minimalise) knock out competitions.
For instance in the World Cup you would have the following scenario….
First stage
32 teams into 8 groups. (48 games)
But only the first placed teams go through into 2 groups of 4. (12 games)
And at the end of thiis 2nd stage, only the 2 winners to go straight to the final. (1 game)
This way, the finalists end up playing just as many games as they do under the current system (7 games). We don’t want the teams having to play anymore. There is always the chance of burnout.
Alternatively, we could have the 2 top placed teams in each group going into a semi-final.
In the end, you get nearly just as many games as the current system (62 v 64 or if you include semi finals, the same!!!).
All teams still get to play a minimum of 3 games.
Only the best teams survive until the 2nd stage
The group matches are cut-throat because only the 1st place team goes through. Teams must win. Draws are of less value than under the current system.
No penalty shoot outs!!!! Except for the Final. Unless they schedule a replay to lessen the chances of a penalty shoot-out.
Drawbacks
There will invariably be some dead rubbers in the 3rd round of each stage. But it is the World Cup and each nation should have enough self-respect to put in 100%.
Many more fans will leave the country after the first stage because the majority of teams will have departed. (But those remaining can more easily organize there time because they have 3 guaranteed games)
Brett McKay said | March 31st 2009 @ 7:59am | Report comment
Savvas, maybe we could do away with the shoot-out and just toss a coin
(please don’t take that as a cheap shot, just my wierd take on irony…)
Adrian, I’m in the “great theatre” category, with regard to the shoot-out, and I have to admit to disappointment when rugby decided not to go ahead with the idea of using a drop-goal shoot-out to decide matches, and likewise when cricket dropped the T20 “bowl-off”.
If after a set period of time a match is deadlocked, and a result is required, then the individual skills under pressure must hold up. It’s great to watch…
dasilva said | March 31st 2009 @ 8:12am | Report comment
I think that there should be a penalty shootout except the world cup final. The showpiece event shouldn’t be decided by penalties. In the final have the team playing after 120 minutes with golden goal and they should play on indefinitely. It would be an epic scenario.
Chop said | March 31st 2009 @ 8:51am | Report comment
I don’t like penalty shootouts and never have, even after being on both sides of the outcome. I think they should play another 10 mins each way and if there’s no result another 5 minutes each way with a player dropping off every two minutes until it’s 7 on 7 or a golden goal is scored.
It would be just as exciting as a penalty shootout, imagine the extra strategy in who to take off when, coaches could keep substitutes until the sudden death extra time.
Millster said | March 31st 2009 @ 9:05am | Report comment
I like the way Savvas is thinking in terms of minimising their use. However when it is unavoidable I also am in line with this column in thinking that they are a traditional aspect of football, and also that there is no other way.
Remember of course that penalties do not happen after 90 minutes ever. They only happen after a further 15 + 15 of extra time, so one cannot argue that other avenues for getting a result are not routinely explored (especially given that extra time is often played on tired legs and therefore with openings and errors and opportunities to score).
For me as long as they exist within a broader culture of 2-legged ties, of group stages and leagues (with victory decided over a series of games) and suchlike, then ok I have no problems with accepting them.
Savvas Tzionis said | March 31st 2009 @ 10:18am | Report comment
Millster, that is part of my rationale. Penalties are to a large extent unavoidable.
Why have we come to this point?The history of knock out tournaments until the 1970′s revealed very few draws. The World Cup had its first penalty shoot out in 1982!!! Yet, there were numerous situations where WC matches could easily have gone into countless replay’s.
I also remember the 1979 season of the English football where Arsenal and Liverpool had to replay an FA Cup match FOUR TIMES!!!
Personally, I think viewers of the World Game had it much better in the past when team’s played to win.
My disdain for penalty shoot outs is such that I go to have my early morning shower when a game reaches this point!!
Pippinu said | March 31st 2009 @ 10:30am | Report comment
I hate penalty shoot outs. I think it’s demeaning to the game. That the world champsionship has been decided twice by penalities out of the last four occasions (i.e. 50%), I find to be an absolute abomination.
That the beautiful game can be reduced to such a cheap circus to decide a champion is incredible.
Penalty shoot outs are not traditional.
The World Cup finals first required a penalty shoot out in 1982 (not all that long ago), i.e. they had gone 52 years without them).
That was for the memorable France vs West Germany semi final – perhaps one of the all time great games.
I watched this game live, and I confess that the shoot out was rivetting, but:
1. it was the first one I had ever seen; and
2. when the more deserving team (France) actually bowed out – it immediately taught me something I have never forgotten – penalties are not a great way of determining who the more worthy team is.
Australian Football worked out the very best way of minimising draws over 110 years ago.
That’s really at the heart of the problem for the beautiful game – and until the whole world wakes up to it – we will need artifiicial means, little side circus acts post the game proper, to separate teams – totally unacceptable!!
jaymz said | March 31st 2009 @ 10:32am | Report comment
i love the shoot outs personally, its like the saying goes “there is no better way to win a game, but there is also no worse way to loose on penalties”.
Dan said | March 31st 2009 @ 10:42am | Report comment
Gotta say Pippinu has a pretty good point there… regardless of whether or not “it makes good theatre”, if ultimately it fails to reflect who was the better team, then surely it can’t be seen as either fair and thus shouldn’t be on the biggest stage.
Millster said | March 31st 2009 @ 10:43am | Report comment
Pip – I would never go so far as to call an aspect of a major sport “a circus” or “demeaning”. I think everyone would prefer major games to be won by other means, of course, but they are football’s way of deciding when there is no other.
I also challenge the idea of there being a “more deserving” team when the penatly shoot out occurs. What’s to say that a team which has had more posession or more time in attack is more deserving than one which has “held the fort” for 120 minutes? They are different game plans, and aethetically one dominates the other sure enough, but who is to say which is the more deserving if both are so well executed that there is no normal-time winner?
Finally the reference to AFL was unwise and irrelevent. Its scoring system and game-play is very distant from that of football. And without meaning disrespect I think its true to say that behinds in AFL are more often subject to ridicule from outside the immediate AFL community than they are subject of consideration as a valid addition to any other sport’s scoring philosophy.