Yeah, let’s avoid penalties by playing a different game is not an attractive option.
I’m a little surprised that Sheffield Rules have not been brought up (though shots on goal has been mentioned). Wiki: “Historically, one of the first tie-breaking procedures was contained in the Sheffield Rules between 1862 and 1871, with the concept of the rouge, scorable when the ball went narrowly wide of the goal. Rule 14 stated “A goal outweighs any number of rouges. Should no goals or an equal number be obtained, the match is decided by rouges”. Similarly, the try in rugby football was used from 1875 as a tie-breaker if teams were level on goals.”
Wiki lists other alternatives. Personally I’m leaning towards RitterSport’s pinball flipper proposal.
Copa America does this, at least until the Final, which has 30 minutes extra time.
Permit me to attempt a little synthesis.
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Groups of four where all teams play each other (round robin) are better matched for a low scoring game than the single elimination structure. But we’d rather not have a situation where the winner is decided far before the final round. Tradeoff. Perhaps we could help the purists out by changing the round of 16 to another group battle. Quarterfinals and semi-finals are still played elimination.
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So somebody will have to win at the quarterfinal and semi-final stage. Stack the serious proposals in this thread. Start by tacking on overtime with decreasing numbers of players, like the NHL - Golden Goal is too boring. When you hit the point when it starts to risk injury to the players, switch to Attacker Defender Goalkeeper (ADG). If that doesn’t produce a winner, apply Sheffield Rules to overtime only. That keeps the main game pure. If that doesn’t provide a winner, apply Sheffield rules to the main game. I’m thinking that the odds of this are sufficiently remote that they won’t affect play much. After that, flip a coin. Seriously. Unlike the penalty shootout, it doesn’t disguise its random nature.
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Ok, now for the finals. No overtime. If it’s a tie, it’s a tie. The winnings are cut in half and then divided evenly between the two teams. The remaining prize money funds an exhibition game rematch in 2-7 days time.
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Exhibition game money gets topped up by FIFA. It follows quarterfinal rules so that it has a decisive end. You say scheduling won’t allow it? Sure it will - teams can be filled with anybody from their home country, coaches choice. I trust they can find someone with a free afternoon. Eventually, this might evolve into an association football exhibition week worldwide.
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Optionally, extra balls and paint guns can be slotted in between main match Sheffield rules and the coin toss.
In the second set of overtimes, the ball can only be played using the hands/arms. Football would be a foul. Throw from the penalty spot for football in the box.
I think you raise a good point. Football/soccer is exciting because it isn’t based on stats - it’s do or die, and weak teams can prevail over stronger teams on the day through shear grit. That isn’t true of many sports. Stats would kill this thrilling event.
Maybe penalties are right after all, they fit the over-arching theme of football. the edge of the seat nightmare that it is.
Italy wins the coin flip!
Maybe a Football X-7 match instead?
Of the suggestions thus far I think Attacker-Defender-Goalkeeper is the only one that isn’t worse than the current PKs and doesn’t involve basically playing an entirely different game.
Tie Resolution Solutions powered by FIFA.
How about in extra time, the GK can’t use their hands? It would probably be very difficult for a professional GK to suddenly change their entire style of play like that, so maybe add an extra substitution to allow teams to replace the GK with another center back when extra time starts.
Then play 15 minute periods until someone wins. At some point, maybe after three or four periods, even with extra substitutions, player safety would demand that you stop the game and just flip a coin, but I imagine it would be rare for a game to still be tied after one extra period and extremely rare to need more than two.
Or rather cynically, the “wrong team” won way too many times.
Or maybe they can only use their hands in the 6-yard box instead of the 18? That would make corners much more dangerous, as well as crosses of all kinds, while still giving a goalkeeper a chance of saving a shot.
I do like the requirement limiting the number of defensive players. Maybe each team has to have at least one or two players on the attacking side of the field during extra time (so basically the attacking team will always have at least a man advantage).
Both of these changes should reduce the likelihood of spot-kicks as the tie-breaker, but perhaps they are against the rules of the OP since they don’t outright eliminate them.
Reducing them is fine by me, although elimination should be the goal.
Penalties might not be to everyone’s liking, but they’re the best option available. The problem is the assertion that penalties are a coin toss, they are not.
The teams who practice them most and the players who can handle pressure better generally win.
A golden goal rule just makes extra time even more defensive and negative.
It’s a fascinating aspect of the game when you have one team playing for penalties and the other preferring to try to score before the end of 120 mins.
I really don’t understand this. A golden goal without penalties should not be any different than the current setup.
It makes teams super nervous, because a goal against them and that’s it, literally game over. So none of them will push forward and the game drags out into a really boring defensive pass-about. Trust the people that have watched it, it was a disaster.
Right, but that was in a situation where there were still penalties after O/T.
It’s weird, because in hockey, which has sudden death, you don’t really see that sort of sit back and wait strategy. I guess that’s because hockey is a much more offensive-minded game.
This, exactly. The Golden Goal was used by FIFA for about 10 years (1993-2002), if Wiki is correct. And penalties could still decide the match, if no golden goal was scored.
I still maintain that if the match is determined solely by a Golden Goal, both teams would attack just as they would throughout the game in a tied match.
It was the same with penalties, but worse. Penalties came after golden goal, now golden goal has been dropped but penalties remain. There’s your answer.
How can you not like penalties? Terry hitting the post, Anelka and Morata visibly nervous and going to miss, Pirlo epic Panenka, Bonucci cool as cucumber.
You really should be able to hit the target if you’re a competent, not even professional, player. Fair enough if the keeper saves it. So they’re good fun watching how many bottle it, as well as being the logical conclusion to a draw.
I would use a rule I call “Last goal wins”. That is, it the two teams are tied after regulation, they play the extra time, and then if they are still tied, the winner is determined by the team that has scored last.
While this rule doesn’t solve a 0-0 final score, which would need to be decided by penalty kicks, I think it would incentivize teams to be more proactive in trying to score goals, rather than defending a tie and hoping to win the penalty kicks lottery.