Soccer may get rid of penalty kicks to decide games

The Game Room
141

You seem to be making some sort of argument about our genetic makeup, or at the very least about certain inherent human aesthetic preferences.

But if soccer does indeed lack some of the stuff that “naturally gives us pleasure,” how do you explain its global audience in the billions? Surely, in the absence of a specifically-identifiable gene or some other piece of specific evidence, about all we can say about what “naturally gives us pleasure” is that it must, in some measure, reflect the things that we chose to do and to watch.

If humans do, in fact, “have a tendency to enjoy watching” higher-scoring sports, why has soccer developed as it has, and gained a worldwide audience of people from all sorts of different cultures and societies? In short, it seems to me that soccer’s massive and fanatical audience demonstrates precisely the opposite of what you are arguing.

142

Forgot to address this:

To be honest, i think that the main reason that people (usually, but not always Americans) complain about soccer is precisely because it’s so goddamned popular. It’s completely dominant in Europe, as well as in the Western Hemisphere south of the Rio Grande, and it’s also massive in Asia. It has a global tournament every four years that brings about half the world to a standstill, millions of American kids play it every weekend, and it’s such a ubiquitous part of American culture that its name is even used to refer to a stereotypical American mother figure.

About the only place that it isn’t wildly popular is as a professional sport in the United States, at least when compared to the big three of football, baseball, and basketball (and maybe hockey, too).

Something that big and that globally popular draws attention, and in some cases the attention is negative and critical. That’s fine. Not everyone likes every sport. I’ve had some of my Aussie and British and Kiwi friends yawn and roll their eyes when i tell them how i love baseball and American football. They poke fun at how slow football is, and at all the padding worn by the players, and they laugh at the huge gloves that baseball players get to wear, comparing them unfavorably with cricket players, who have to catch a harder, heavier ball in their bare hands.

All of those comments, though, are based partly in ignorance about how the games themselves work, and partly in the fact that loving a sport involves more than simply knowing how it’s played; it involves becoming immersed in the game and its lore and history and context and culture. I have, i think, a natural inclination towards sports of all types; i adapt very easily when i move countries, and easily pick up the sports of my new home. But the moving is an inherent part of this; i doubt i would have become a big baseball or NFL or hockey fan without living in the US, and i doubt i would have become interested in hockey if i hadn’t spent a couple of years in Vancouver.

And all this is why it is, in my opinion, completely pointless to talk about one sport being objectively better or more logical than another, or about some types of sport being “better aligned with what naturally gives us pleasure.” It’s also why BigT’s argument about fandom being irrelevant to the discussion is so wrongheaded and silly. Sports are inseparable, in many ways, from the culture in which they are played. There is no objectively better way to play something that has no objective aim outside of its own existence.

143

I think soccer is popular because it is fun to play and it has few requirements to get started.

And I think the popularity of watching it is tightly coupled with the popularity of playing it.

This could be part of it. Although I rarely hear someone complain about rugby, I also rarely hear someone talk about rugby at all.

Remember I was referring to “watching” the game.

From the perspective of playing the game, I don’t think soccer (or basketball) lacks anything.
But I do believe it’s possible that some games have elements we naturally find more or less appealing either to watch or to play. I could describe games on the extreme end of the spectrum that I think most would agree would be boring to watch, and I think there are probably games on the other end of the spectrum that a large percentage of humans would find appealing to watch (like fighting, maybe).

144

Same with basketball.

But what about American football or ice hockey? Both require considerable equipment and organization, and yet the first is wildly popular in America, while the second is almost a religion in Canada.

But if this is true, how do you explain the huge disparity between players and viewers in the United States. Literally millions of American kids play soccer, and yet not many Americans watch professional soccer. If viewership were, in fact, tied as closely as you suggest to participation, soccer would be the most watched team sport in America, and in all sports would probably come only behind fishing and golf.

145

If your point is culture, I agree that’s a big factor.

Clearly culture plays a role.

146

And didn’t need penalties to do it…which is sort of where we came in.

147

What are you talking about? The league (take the EPL) runs for 38 matches. You play each team twice, home and away, you get three points for a win, one for a draw. Penalties are never used to decide games and if points totals are level at the end of the year then the team with the better aggregate goal difference wins. If that is level also than the team who scored the most goals wins.

Very simple and it always gives you the best team winning. No argument.

You are making the assumption that the world cup, european cup and other knock-out tournaments are about finding the best team. You have mentioned it again here so I’ll repeat it.
We don’t care who was the best, we care who wins…who was more successful during the tournament and how we were entertained along the way. “Best” is saved for the leagues.

The OP was saying that penalties were a poor way of deciding a game. The ensuing discussion has hopefully enlightened some people as to why they might not be such a bad way after all (and by extension, highlight why it would be a bad idea to always have a winner in a league format)

I’d suggest that not many others have upsets to the same degree and with the same regularity.

Then you truly don’t get it at all. If upsets are possible then that leaves it open for your team to inflict an upset itself. You always have hope, you always have a chance.

148

Yes. And that’s why penalty-kick shootouts are really not that bad of a way to decide who advances (not who wins).

It may help to keep in mind that in any soccer match—whether it’s part of a knock-out round or not—if the score is level after 120 minutes, the game is over. Done. Finished. It has ended in a draw. There will be no winner of that game. Ever. No more actual soccer will be played between those two teams on that occasion. If you don’t fancy a sport in which matches can end in a draw, you probably should find another sport to watch.

However, if two teams finish in a draw after a knock-out round game there has to be some way of deciding which one of the ‘equal teams’ (on that day, anyway) will advance to the next round. They can’t play any more soccer because the game is over. So, the advancing team is picked more or less randomly.

Soccer used to employ a “drawing of lots” decide an advancing team. But then the Powers That Be realized that “Kicks From The Penalty Mark” (i.e.: a ‘penalty shootout’) would be a lot more exciting—even if ‘penalties’ are practically as random as a coin-flip.

Personally, I think penalty shootouts make for one hell of a thrilling “coin-flip”.

149

I mentioned this near the beginning of the thread.

If soccer’s governing bodies wished to increase the number of goals scored per match, not a* single* rule of the game–including the number of players, goal size, color of the corner flags, etc.–would need to be changed.

All that would be necessary would be to direct match officials to whistle (and flag) fouls more stringently. That’s it.
Now, there’s a LOT of money involved in high-level professional soccer. It probably won’t surprise you that: When more people pay to watch games and buy club merchandise, more money is made by leagues/clubs/owners/players.

And it probably won’t surprise you that people really like money… the more the better. It occurs to me that if increased scoring made soccer more popular, that would lead to more ticket sales (at higher prices), bigger TV revenue, and a jump in the number of jerseys, mugs, scarves and key-chains sold.

Is there anyone here who thinks that, if it would increase profits, “Big Soccer” would balk at instructing refs to blow their whistles more?

Or for that matter, does anyone suppose that TPTB would not raise the crossbars to 17-feet, eliminate the offside rule, and make goalkeepers wear handcuffs and leg-irons… if they believed those changes to the game would put millions in their bank accounts?

150

I agree completely with this.

The only real problem that football suffers from is a failure to apply the rules consistently. I’d like to see the rules being applied far more stringently and if that means a few games ending up 7 v 8 so be it, the players would adapt very quickly anyway and the game would be the better for it.

As for the effect on goal scoring, I’m not so sure. I’m not against more goals being scored (to a certain point) but I think any increase from such a crackdown would merely be temporary. Still worth doing though.

151

Let’s make goal scoring even rarer. Imagine just how significant goals will be if the average was only 3 or 4 per year!

Who has argued for making it easy to score “two or three goals in quick succession”? You have a straw man here.

Right now, the average EPL team averages less than a goal an hour. Let’s get radical and say we can get matches where teams average a goal every half hour (which is far more than even my outrageous suggestion). 3 goals per game! How common would two or three goals in quick succession happen? Probably not too often.

That’s kinda the point. Don’t see what’s unfair about it.

PKs! Better than a coin toss! I mean I can buy the idea that they are the least objectionable way to determine who moves on. That’s a far cry from “not bad”. Sorry, PK shootouts are shit despite the fact that there might not be a better way.

While I think it’s probably desirable to increase scoring, I’m not sure scoring out of set plays is the best way to do it (I know I’d prefer to see a higher percentage of goals to be scored from the run of play). For one thing, I think there’s some problems with the penalty/reward setup in soccer (yeah, I know billions of lived with it for thousands of year, so it must be OK).

152

That’s a good defense of the current system and something to think about. However, I could accept it more if oftentimes teams didn’t just play for the draw so they could go to penalty kicks. Let’s say a game ended 0-0 after two hours where the teams were constantly trying to score and the bar was hit five times each way and the goalkeepers were made to work out, I could be more satisfied with a “drawing of lots.”

Not that I’m advocating it, but let’s say that there was a system where drawn games in knockout tournaments meant both teams would be eliminated. I’d venture that there wouldn’t be any “parking the bus” to try to outlast a superior team and both teams would go all out to try to break a deadlock, which would make for a more exciting two hours (regardless of the result).

I think some good points have been made for the PK shootout but I still think it should be held after ninety minutes (perhaps shortened to three kicks).

153

I like penalties to decide cup finals and similar games. Essentially every other alternative to replace them just boils down to two teams who were evenly matched for 120 minutes either running themselves both into the ground until one makes a mistake due to fatigue (i.e. unlimited overtime) or some other element of chance (i.e. tossing a coin), so why not just get it over and done with using penalties? Besides, they’re amazing cliffhangers.

154

Piffle… I think scoring should be about as common as it is in the Eton Wall Game, in which no goals have been scored in the St. Andrews Day Match since 1909!
More seriously, I think that PKs-after-90-minutes-for-.5-goals is clearly the best option. Sure there’s a conditioning/exhaustion issue, but world class athletes ought to be able to deal with it. I mean, they can deal with the break before overtime, they can deal with a lengthy delay while an injured player is carted off the field, etc…

155

I still don’t see what’s wrong with the suggestion of using the number of fouls committed in normal time as a tie-breaker in knockout games (after extra time has been played). The authorities always seem keen to encourage “fair play”, after all. The only objection I can see is that it might encourage diving. But, players don’t seem to need any invitation to dive - they already do it all the time. And there are already rules in place against “simulation”, which are reasonably well enforced.

Any tie-breaking mechanism based on in-game play risks distorting the play itself, but most of the other suggestions are based on things that a team can, to a significant extent, make happen, such as earning corner kicks. Basing it on something that essentially depends on the action of the opponent would seem a good way of lessening the impact on the play. And free kicks happen a lot, so it’s not like a single decision would swing a game.

Penalty shootouts are exciting, true. But so would a pistol duel between the opposing captains be. It wouldn’t be football, though.

156

If referees were instructed to call fouls more stringently you would only see a sizable increase in free kicks for… I don’t know… the first 3 or 4 games of the season, probably. After that, the players would adapt to the new style of officiating and consequently, they wouldn’t hold jerseys, hold off defenders, trip attackers, etc., as much as they used to. Result? More goals scored in the run of play.

Also–remember that fouls happen all over the field. A free kick can really only be considered a “set play” when it occurs close enough to the goal for a shot to be taken directly from the kick (or maybe after one pass). So even during the “adjustment period” there’d be a smaller increase in “set plays” then you were perhaps imagining.

157

Good point. You could be right about that.