Horrible isn’t it. Poor sod. A lot of people in tears from both sides. What pressure.
Complete tangent - does anyone know where I can find out which referees are officiating in which matches (or were, for matches that have finished)? An old college friend of mine is now a FIFA accredited ref and is supposed to be in charge of some of the matches, but I haven’t seen him in action and would love to.
He’s still quite young, so may well not be trusted for these final stages, so I’ve probably missed seeing him in action, but I’d still like to know…
Thanks
Grim
I would prefer something like this:
Run 10 minutes periods after regulation. For each period, pull a man off each team. That is, the first 10 minutes you play 10 on 10, then the second 10 you play 9 on 9, etc.
I don’t know if this is feasible, but it seems like fewer men on the pitch would necessarily result in more scoring.
It’s incredible, but there’s an outside chance for all four semi-finalists to be from South America. Paraguay is going to be a big underdog against Spain or Portugal, but you’d have to take Uruguay and Brazil in their matches, and Argentina could well do it against Germany. Wow.
Go here and click on the scores for each match to be taken to the match summary. Scroll down, and you’ll find a list of officials for that match.
Nope. Really shitty idea.
I could live with the notion of continuing to play until someone scores, but actually removing players from the field would ruin things more than a penalty shootout, IMO.
Harsh!
Also, why would it ruin it “more”? At least you’re playing football. Penalties seem like the worst, most contrived way possible to decide things.
Thanks - I managed to find him on worldreferee.com, he’s had two group matches so far, and managed them competently (at least according to that site)…
Grim
I actually liked the way the old NASL used to do it. A player got the ball 35 yard away from goal and 5 seconds was on the clock. The player then tried to score one on one against the goalie. It was exciting, gave the goalie a fighting chance and required more skill.
It’s not actually football, though, which is the problem. I actually don’t think the shorthanded play idea is that bad, for the record, though I’m not sure it would actually increase scoring.
Another method I heard suggested, to encourage attacking play, was that extra time would be played indefinitely, but every 10 minutes a sniper would shoot one player on each team at random. I think this idea was mooted after a particularly dull 0-0 draw 
Yes, penalties are contrived. But so is actually removing people from the field of play. Soccer has 11 men per side. That’s how it’s played. Removing people (except in the case of red cards) is a change to the fundamental nature of the sport. What other game removes people during the game in order to facilitate scoring?
As i said, i’d prefer a system where they continue playing until someone scores. With 11 players.
I believe the NHL regular season plays a 5 minute overtime period, sudden-death, with 4 skaters and a goalie on each side (fewer than the 5 skaters and a goalie they use during the regular periods).
You’re right. I don’t think that’s a good rule either.
Also, the fact that this understrength overtime period is limited to 5 minutes makes it quite different from soccer.
Would you be in favor of a golden goal if your suggestion of infinite overtime periods were adopted?
My possibly crazy idea was that each team in the World Cup and Champions League should come with their junior teams. After 90 minutes and a draw, the junior teams face off for 15-minute periods. This way, the fatigue issue is never a problem. If you can’t win in 90, let someone else have chance.
As it stands right now, Paraguay’s chances of winning its next match were seriously damaged by having to play 120 minutes. If they had to play until a goal was scored, the winner of Paraguay/Japan would have had a vanishingly small chance of beating Spain/Portugal.
I personally don’t find it ideal but infinitely preferable to a penalty shootout.
They did use the golden goal in previous World Cups, of course. Personally I like them and thought that they abandoned the idea too readily, after only two World Cups. The rationale for that was something about it making teams terrified to attack in extra time, but ISTR several games being won by golden goals. It’s no different to the situation in the last few minutes of normal time.
They also tried the “silver goal” in (at least) Euro 2004 - game ends if either team is ahead after the first period of extra time.
That’s a good point.
In a competition like this, where games are played in fairly rapid succession, the credibility of the tournament as a whole rests partly on starting each game with two fairly fresh and match-ready teams. That, by itself, is a pretty decent argument for penalty shootouts.