Does any other major sport have such a bogus way to decide games in tournaments/playoffs? I know the NHL uses them but not for the playoffs.
The solution is simple - make it easier to score and you have way less need for this crap.
I would like it if they had a better way to decide cup and playoff games, but not at the expense of completely screwing with the rest of the sport.
As a soccer fan, i’m not interested in making a fundamental change to the way the game is played in the regular 90 minutes just to fix the problem of the shootout. I don’t want a typical soccer game to end 7-5 or 9-2, or even 5-3.
I was disappointed at the outcome of last weekend’s Champions League game, because i fucking hate Chelsea and i was rooting for Bayern Munich. I also prefer when a game does not go to penalties; it’s always disappointing, even if the team i’m cheering for wins the shootout.
But if they screwed with the rest of the game in such as way as to fundamentally change it, i would be less interested in the sport, even if it resulted in fewer shootouts. And i suspect that this is true of the vast majority of soccer fans the world over.
I have no idea what your general attitude to soccer is, but in my experience, most people who suggest such fundamental changes to the game (e.g., make the goals bigger; make scoring easier) are the sort who occasionally watch their kids in under-11 soccer, and who might turn on the TV to watch a game once every four years, during the World Cup.
The first step should be to make overtime Golden goal (Sudden Death). Nothing is worse than having both teams score in overtime and then have penalty kicks.
I also think the old MLS shoot-out system is better than penalty kicks since it seemed less dependent on a guess by the goalie. But I doubt anything “American” would be adopted as a rule.
I’d prefer a system of alternating corner kicks where each team fielded 11 players. I’m not sure on the exact rules I’d propose, but something like once goalie controls the ball or the defense clears the ball past some mark, that try ends. This woudl at least make teh deciding factor 11 on 11.
why not allow unlimited subs like almost all other sports? That way you can play longer to settle the game because you don’t have as many people worn out.
Sudden death is also a good idea but once again you have the problem of how hard it is to score.
Of course in a shootout it’s easy to score so that is a very ironic way to settle a game.
How many soccer games have more than one goal scored in OT? I don’t have any data, but it seems like in such a low-scoring sport, few games have more than one goal scored in OT. It’s certainly a good idea, and I don’t see any reason not to implement it, but I’m skeptical that it will solve the problem.
FIFA already tried Sudden Death back in the 90s, and while I’m still in favor of it over the current system, they came to the conclusion (as far as I am aware) that most teams went super defensive in OT. Rather than go all out to win, both teams just played not to lose. The NHL had the same issue before changing the point system - now you get a point just for making it to OT, so there’s no real downside (generally speaking) to throwing everything at the goal to get the extra point (regular season, of course).
I can’t say that I’ve solved the problem though. Every idea I can think of other than PKs to decide it seems just as arbitrary. To mhendo, however, I would say that I am a die hard, life-long soccer fan who IS in favor of bigger goals. The goals are the same size they’ve been for the last 100 years, but the keepers are a foot taller (probably) and have the benefit of exercise and training regimens light years ahead of their 19th Century counterparts (definitely). Scoring now IS harder than it used to be. I don’t think it would fundamentally alter the game in any way other than to mildly increase scoring if FIFA were to increase the goals by, say, 1 foot in height and an extra yard in width.
I too did not like the outcome of the CL final but just because I don’t like the outcome does not mean the rules are wrong. I’m not sure that football has a problem that is in need of solving, nor do I think that this idea that’s just been floated is going to go anywhere. They tried golden (and silver) goal and abandoned it pretty quickly. And personally I think there’s nothing wrong with going out on PKs - I find them pretty entertaining as long as I don’t support one of the teams that’s playing.
I don’t think making it easier to score is a simple solution at all. How would FIFA or UEFA accomplish that? Make the goals bigger or so? Why would you still have goalies if you give them no reasonable chance to do their jobs, though? And why would you necessarily want more goals? Football is already the world’s most popular sport and people the world over seem to like it just fine including how often teams score. Why change the game for the benefit of people who don’t really care for it as is?
I like it the game as it is. The only thing I’ve seen as a possible improvement would be to switch to corner kicks instead of penalties after extra time. I think I mentioned this a couple years ago in a World Cup thread. Have 3 corners for each team, and then go to sudden death afterward. Once the defense clears the corner to a certain point (out of play behind the goal, 30 yards out, 10 second rule to score…I don’t know exactly), then it’s either a goal or it’s not. Of course, goals don’t come from corners very much, so there’s no assurance it’s much better than penalties. Lots of goals vs. very few goals. But it’s somewhat truer to the regular game than just striker vs. goalie.
Every other sport (at least in the US) seems to have no problem with changing rules to adapt to changes in the game. What makes soccer so unwilling to change the rules?
The NFL is super popular in the US but they change rules every few years. Lately a lot of NFL changes have been for safety but not all of them. For example they changed their OT rules for the playoffs last year. Why would being popular mean you don’t change the rules?
The simplest way to increase scoring is to use the NHL type offside rule. Which means that once you go beyond a certain line, there is no offside. Works great for hockey. It also takes away some judgement calls from the refs and we know those guys are not perfect.
But why does it have to be ‘true to the game’? They’ve had two hours to use the game as it’s played to determine who is the best team and that has yielded no results, so as far as we can tell there is no best team. A tie breaker is needed - why do corner kicks serve that purpose better than penalty kicks?
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because there is no strong consensus that change is needed amongst fans, FAs, clubs, players, etc. Your flatout assertion in the OP that PKs are a bogus way to decide a game is a matter of opinion, not fact, and in this case, a matter of not very widely shared opinion.
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because organizations like NHL, NFL, MLB, NBA, are much more powerful than, say, UEFA. In the case of football, you have a) the clubs, which are much stronger than the franchises in the American sports; b) the national FAs, which are quite powerful and for which there is no alternative really in any of the American sports. So UEFA is not really in a position to just push through change at will much like the NHL are.
How about a system where after normal time you have sudden death with no time limit? At least that would encourage teams to attempt to score.
No it wouldn’t - it would encourage teams to become ultradefensive and wait for the other team to try something. There’s absolutely no incentive to move first here. It’s what the golden goal experiment showed the first time around, and frankly it’s what already happens during OT now, as teams believe they’ll stand a better chance in PKs than they do by playing offensive football and trying to score before penalty kicks.
I don’t know if corner kicks would be the best way to go. There’s still a big random factor. It would be like using a pachinko machine to decide the winner. I would like something more skill based.
I’d like to see something like a faceoff where there are 3 offense against 2 defenders and the goalie. They start from the mid field line and have 60 seconds to score a goal. First to 5 wins. This way the more skillful team should consistently win.
leave it alone, soccer is what it is because of the emotional highs and lows of the games. The idea of bigger goals holds some appeal at the international level but at a local/club level would suck. I used to be a goalie…
When I was a kid we didn’t even have goals.
Every game ended 0-0 and we liked it that way.
Some people have suggested holding the PK contest after ninety minutes. In this way, an inequality is introduced and one team must outscore the other in the following thirty minutes or lose. If it seems unfair that one team is to be made the winner if the teams remain tied, it should be noted that whenever a penalty kick contest takes place, there always is a winner that scored the exact same amount of goals as the so-called losing side. Also, this happens when ties are broken in two-leg series by the away goals rule.
Not that I like this idea all that much. The break in the momentum of full-scale action for a PK contest before continuing again would be odd. On the other hand, the ten or fifteen minutes would be about the length of a halftime break, which the players could use to rest up before going all out for one last half hour.
There have been ideas floated about counting corners won from the stats and the win going to the team who has a higher number. This however seems dubious since the strategy of the game would change in some situations where a cross into the box might be decided against to try to knock a ball off of an opposing player. (Maybe only certain corners should count, such as those that go off the keeper or that are kicked out by defenders.) But this isn’t such a great idea either, I think. It would be odd to see tied teams trying to win corners, just for the sake of winning corners, late in a tied game.
I also remember after the 2004 final (when the World Cup was decided by pk’s for the first time), a suggestion that players be pulled off the field every seven or eight minutes of extra time, until only seven versus seven were on the field. This isn’t such a great idea, though.
In American football, teams are given two timeouts for the overtime period. Why can’t tied teams in soccer be allowed two or three more subs for the extra half hour? Maybe they could have ten minute periods, up to a maximum of four, with two subs allowed every period (including players who have been subbed out earlier). If a team leads after any period, the game is over. That’s it. And we’ll just call it what it is: a team outscoring another team and winning. Not a “silver goal” or “golden goal” or “bronze goal.” If the game is still tied after all this, then they can go to pk’s. But hopefully this would happen less often.
I’ve never thought of it, but what’s the deal with having two periods played out anyway? It’s like a minigame added to the ninety minute draw, a third of the length of the original contest. I’ve noticed this in other sports as well (like a tied water polo game in the Olympics).
While we’re on the subject, I have a question: I’ve always wondered what happens in the rare situation where a penalty kick contest goes all the way to the tenth and eleventh kickers when one of the teams has had a player sent off. Would it mean that the short-handed team would have its worst kicker (the goalkeeper, usually) kicking in the tenth position and then, if still tied, enjoying the benefit of their first kicker going again against the other team’s eleventh player (their keeper)?
I think you may be close to the mark here. But IMO, soccer should never have unlimited subs during regular time and extra-time. It would no longer be soccer if it did.
Maybe the answer is unlimited periods of extra-time–with a few tweaks to the substitution rules. But (and this is key) the tweaks come into effect only after 90 minutes plus 30 minutes of extra-time have resulted in a tie.
The main reason we don’t see unlimited extra-time periods now is, due to the physical requirements of soccer, it would be pretty much impossible to play much more than say, 40 or 50 minutes of extra-time before exhaustion, bad injuries, and desperate and harsh fouling become major factors.
This could be mitigated by moving to a new, special set of substitution rules after the conclusion of extra-time (the point in which a penalty shootout is currently employed).
At that point, allow teams to substitute as many players as they want. Repeat this at the conclusion of any additional set of extra-time periods.
Additionally, during the actual run-of-play in “extra-extra-time” one additional sub would be allowed to each team. As with normal substitution, once a player has been subbed off, he (or she) can not return to the game.
Of course, teams’ substitute pools would still be limited to the rosters that they brought into that match. So, maybe the roster size could be enlarged a few spots… but only for matches where a team must advance at the conclusion (elimination games).
Don’t forget–the striking/scoring players have all the benefits of being taller, better training, better health, too.
Changing the size of the goals is a very bad idea, IMO. It would be like making basketball rims 3 inches bigger. It just changes the game on so many different levels–some of which wouldn’t be apparent until we actually observed top-level teams playing under those circumstances.
Besides, you don’t need to increase goal-size or make any other changes to the Laws of the Game to increase scoring. If FIFA wanted higher scores all they would need to do is instruct the referees to start strictly whistling every foul that occurred.
There’s all sorts of problems with unlimited extra time: TV schedules, the fact that the more tired players get the less attacking they become which would make the time extend for longer than it’s possible… even subs would be used more sparsely than you may think, since they are fresh but cold, needing a few minutes to gather momentum, which makes substitutions a window of opportunity for the other side to strike.
As Tony said, the idea I heard in this same board after the WC that the penalties are kicked between the regular match and the extended time, giving the winner half a goal (as to make it impossible to still be equal after ET) is the best solution I’ve heard: one of the sides would have to attack, instead of both sides being boringly cautious and defensive, and the match would be decided in actual play, making the feeling that one side lucked out less of an issue.