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While watching the Asian Cup final go deep into extra time, one of my friends turned to me and said, “I’d take any goal at the moment, even one for Japan. That’s got to be better than penalties.” A few minutes later he got his wish.
To purists, the penalty shoot-out is like a lottery.
For a low scoring game like football where every goal is like gold, having a contest decided by penalties sits at odds with how the rest of the game is played.
So how to resolve a drawn final?
There seem to be three main options:
1. Using performance in prior matches.
2. Using the performance of the teams in the match.
3. Lottery type mechanisms like penalties.
Determining the result of a game by using goal difference or goals scored is not comparing like with like.
Two 1-0 victories against the two other ‘good’ teams in the ‘group of death’ should be ranked much higher than 3-0 victories against lesser opposition in an easier group.
Any mechanism put in place to break a deadlock should not produce a decision that is contentious.
There are also difficulties with the second option which would include measures such as the number of times a team hits the woodwork or the number of corners that occur during the game.
There seem to be a lot of people who support for the woodwork option as it is not something that players would aim to do, but would reward the team which has played the most attacking football.
To passing observers of football, the most attractive teams are generally those who score more goals, but this undervalues a team which can soak up massive periods of pressure and score on the counter.
This style of play can be just as exciting and attractive as a 5-0 drubbing.
Football isn’t just about scoring goals, but stopping them as well. What constitutes attractive football is in the eye of the beholder.
That leaves the third option and once concepts like golden goal which have been tried but rejected are eliminated, the only realistic method out there would seem to be penalties.
There have been suggestions that penalties could be taken from other spots, or that the style of the shoot-out could be amended to resemble ice hockey shoot-outs.
However, the idea that is the most intriguing is altering the time at which the penalties are taken. This concept is based on introducing ‘imbalance’ into the game; that is only two results are in play rather than three.
A classic example was the Australia Croatia game at Germany 2006. Croatia knew anything less than a win would see them eliminated as a draw was as good as a win for Australia.
By introducing imbalance into the game, the incentives on offer change.
So if the game ends in a tie and the result of the penalty shoot out is used to determine the result, when to take the penalties? It all depends on when it is thought that imbalance should be introduced into the game.
If penalties are taken before the game, there is imbalance for the whole 90 minutes. The option that would seem most preferable is to have penalties after the 90 minutes of regular play, but still play extra time.
This option allows for the game to be played as normal with imbalance only introduced in extra time.
Whilst there will still be situations where two teams are trying not to lose rather than win for 90 minutes, if the team that loses the penalty shoot out knows that if they don’t get a result in extra time they will lose hopefully the result is a less timid approach to extra time with it all to play for.
It’s a complicated issue.
There are the fans of the penalty shoot out who wouldn’t have the high drama of a final decided any other way. If there weren’t penalties then one of the greatest moments in Australian football may not have happened (that Aloisi penalty still send shivers down my spine).
Here’s a final thought on the topic to the head honcho himself, Sepp Blatter.
“When you play a World Cup final, it’s all about passion and desire. When you go into extra time, we’re talking about drama.
But when we reach the penalty shoot-out, it’s a tragedy. Football is a team game, while the penalty shoot-out is all about the individual.”
PS: The title is taken from a Pele quote. The full quote is “A penalty is a cowardly way to score.”
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