The distribution of opinions in that thread is not really ‘the consensus’, though - that’s a discussion between some people who know dick-all about football, don’t like it very much as a result, and still find it necessary to find fault with it and complain about the rules. As several people mention in that thread, it would seem that most football fans don’t have major problems with it, some are uneasy with but don’t really know any other adequate solution to the problem, and a small number don’t like it and want it changed. That’s just my guess, though, I did not crunch the numbers - but if you ask what the consensus is, I’d have to say that amongst football fans, PKs as a tiebreaker are not seen as a major problem.
Note that ‘in the regular season’, this never happens, because there is no need for a tie breaker - it only happens when there has to be a winner and other ways of deciding (goal differential, goals scored away) don’t work. But you would not see it in Eurocup or Worldcup qualifiers, or in the final round group games, or in an EPL game for instance.
A simple change I would like to see is to have tie-breaker penalties kicked from further away than regular penalties. The basic problem with penalties is that they become a test of nerve and luck more than skill because they are really too easy. If they are hit from further away, you increase the role of skill for both the striker and the goalkeeper.
Come to think of it, I wouldn’t mind having two tiers of penalties even in the regular game based on the seriousness of the foul. For the borderline calls, which are usually controversial, referees can give the more difficult penalty.
Because you make the mistake of assuming that the three substitutes would be offensive players. Truth is, being extremely conservative is the default mode for most managers, which would leave you with fresher defenders against really tired attackers, and less of them.
Which would make the ET even less exciting than it already is.
It was said that a factor in Manchester United goalkeeper Ben Foster’s success at saving penalties in the 2009 League Cup final was down to watching the opposing team take penalties on a video he watched on an iPod just before the crucial shoot-out, so actually it has been done - and amazingly, that was over 3 years ago, I thought it was much more recent. Incidentally, ironic that that article quotes Ferguson as saying Foster will be England’s goalie “for years to come” - at the time there was considerable uncertainty over who England’s best number 1 was, this is clearly no longer the case. It does make you feel a bit sorry for Foster and Rob Green - so near yet so far, but that’s the nature of professional sport I suppose.
ETA: I did see an England coach talking to Hart just before the shoot-out, but he only seemed to have a notepad with him, of the paper variety. Presumably he couldn’t have predicted Pirlo’s effort anyway - at that level, you have to make a dive otherwise you look really silly either waiting in the middle as the ball nestles in the corner of the net, or just being too late anyway.
Agreed - hope he keeps his job, no reason for him not to - this is a performance we can build on going into the next World Cup, though we do need some more talent to emerge sharpish in all areas of the pitch except between the sticks.
Quite possibly - one feature of the game I liked was the England were usually maintaining a higher line than in previous matches - except when Terry was too slow and played people onside, which happened at least twice. Fortunately we got away with that (on one occasion with a superb recovery tackle by him).
I thought it was an entertaining game to watch even as a long-suffering England fan - we had our chances and Rooney came about an inch away from immortality, much like Gazza in '96. Had he connected with that overhead I think it would have been in the top 5 best England goals of all time, if not the best (as there was a nice bit of build-up play beforehand). But as others have said, England were very much second-best for almost the whole game. At least it avoids humiliation by the Germans.
Only because I think the team with the most offensive depth is going to go for the win & not the PK lotto. Only makes sense. For instance, throw in Mata, Navas & Llorente or Negrego in extra time, and I am sure Spain would go all out for the win – as would any team with those kinds of offensive weapons on the bench.
I agree, the manager was not the weak spot in this set-up. He did the best he could with limited ability. He gave them shape and purpose in the latter third of the pitch (where effort and organisation can work wonders), ultimately though, the players simply are not good enough at keeping possession in the midfield and attacking thirds.
It really is that simple and the English game does not reward that way of playing so why be surprised that we are so bad at it?
It isn’t that we don’t have the raw material, we do of course, just that from a very early age the mentality of the game in England is rush, rush, effort, muscle, speed. It is a tragedy really. I’ve played the 11 a-side game as a child and adult for over 30 years and I can say that nothing has changed.
Even now, those I play with look on me as crazy if I drop to receive the ball from the keeper, or play easy balls across the back four. Why? because they don’t trust themselves with the ball at their feet and in tight situations. So they don’t do it, it never becomes habit and we enter a vicious circle of long ball and muscle.
It is a question of technique and mentality and both of these things need hammering into the children when they are young and continued by the professional teams from the youth leagues onwards.
It isn’t happening though and it will take a major policy shift by the FA and 15 years hard work to give us the required culture change and adult players with the instinctive capability to play in a way that challenges for tournaments regularly.
I saw recently that the FA have finally decided to change the set-up of youth football so that younger age groups will play with smaller teams on smaller pitches, building up to full size teams/pitches I think at about age 12. This will come into practice in 2013-14.
I must admit I hadn’t realised quite how much control the FA has over how football is played and coached right from the start. And the slightly depressing thing was that apparently it took years of tireless effort from some energetic technical director guy, going round the country to every county FA, to persuade them to adopt this change. It seems that the guys in blazers at these amateur county FAs all have a vote in these things, and they’re a rather conservative bunch. Getting any progressive change through the system is hard work.
Absolutely, almost 25 years since since the French initiated anacademy to address similar issues, every country in Europe has something similar except? anybody? Bueller?..England! We’ve taken over a* decade* to not quite create our own version.
The FA are happy to spend £750 million on Wembley and yet can’t even get their arse in gear to complete such a fundamental project in a reasonable time frame.
It says it all really. And even when it is complete it won’t solve the problem without the commitment to the major philosophical and technical changes that you mentioned.
Seconded. The all-or-nothing nature of penalties means that referees are hesitant to award them and corner kicks for example can look like wrestlemania – defenders know the referee is unlikely to virtually award a goal for off-ball pushing, in a situation where some degree of pushing is inevitable.
Yes, people argue about goal line technology, penalty shootouts and so on, but to me the biggest flaw in the rules of football is the penalty in regular play. It affects far more games than shootouts or disputed goals.
There is already another rule that incorporates the concept of “clear goal-scoring opportunity”. If referees are already deemed capable of judgung that, I don’t see why the concept can’t be extended to penalty kick decisions. If not a clear goal scoring opportunity, it should just be a regular free kick, regardless of where the offence happened.
It seems ridiculous to me that you can be fouled while 19 yards in front of goal, but it’s not a penalty, and then in other circumstances you can be further away from the goal, at an oblique angle to it with little immediate prospect of scoring, but if you’re fouled there it is a penalty. At the very least, make the penalty area D-shaped, like they sensibly do in other sports.
I don’t agree. It is a clearly marked area, regardless of shape, and both parties know the significance it carries. The attacking team has earned the right to expect harsher punishment of the defenders in that situation.
In any case the concept of a free kick in the penalty box for a lower severity foul is already in place.
Personally, I’d just make sure that the refs punish all fouls in the box consistently. Shirt pulling and blocking? yellow card and free kick or penalty every time. They have the extra officials at the Euros already so no reason why they be spotted and punished.
“Well everyone knows what the rule is” is not much of a counter-argument. It’s not saying why the rule is right as is.
It doesn’t get used very often though, and it’s a brave referee that tries to set a new precedent. It’s the kind of thing that would need a new FIFA guideline.
Yeah but you see the issue I was trying to describe. Every corner kick features pushing and shoving, are we going to specify no contact at all? If not, then it’s difficult, and pretty arbitrary, to draw the line between normal pushing and a foul, and you piss a lot of people off with a false positive.
I think referees will continue to be cautious and turn a blind eye to pushing during corners (or, as often happens, just award a free kick to the defending team).
There is no such thing as allowable “normal pushing”. By definition it is a foul and should be punished as such. I know it isn’t but the game would be improved if it were.
You’d have a couple of games of uproar and then it’d be banished forever.
I’m not sure it can be that simple; if two players are converging on the same space, what should they do? Should I concede the space to my opponent?
Right now a little “strength” battle is allowed, both in regular outfield play and set pieces; I’m not sure what you’d do if no contact was allowed.
I have no problem with arbitrarily drawing a line between “strength battling” and an outright push, the latter being a foul.
The problem I have is with that line being vastly different between outfield play and corners. In corners ISTM you can virtually piledrive strikers because awarding a penalty for off-ball pushing is a big call to make.
Body to body contact is fine for such a strength battle but you aren’t allowed to use hands and arms.
It just so happens that those rules seem to be suspended for corners etc.
I think we basically agree on this and your take on it is absolutely correct. Why it is different I don’t know but it would be a trivial matter (in terms of enforcement) to bring about a level playing field. Not so trivial for those sent off during the first few games of enforcement but hey, they are big boys and would learn very quickly under the pressure of such punishments.