To be clear, we’re just talking about the 30 minutes of extra time here, not the full 90 minutes. But, yes, I think that on average, an extra time in which one team scores early, and then is up a goal for much of the extra time, is going to be more exciting than an extra time in which neither team ever scores.
Note that there are exceptions (I think it was the recent Copa America final where the extra time was incredibly exciting back and forth), but as things currently stand, there’s just no urgency for either team.
And of course, that doesn’t mean that a team’s best strategy is to never attack. If you’re up a goal in extra time you certainly play defensively, but if you just park 11 players in the penalty box, then the other team can just pour medium range shots into the box until they inevitably eventually score. You have to at least threaten a counterattack from time to time to keep the other team honest, to keep a few of their defenders back in their half, etc.
When it comes right down to it, the proof is in the pudding. Germany scored against Italy with 25 minutes remaining in regular time in the recent Euro quarterfinal. That put them in a situation reasonably similar to a team starting 30 minutes of extra time up a goal. Did that make the next period of the game, until Italy equalized, more or less interesting and compelling? (Bear in mind, of course, that what makes watching a game of soccer exciting is not just the tactics on the field, it’s also the psychological ramifications of the situation. I find “Italy must score in the next 5 minutes or they lose!!!” much more compelling than “Italy or Germany must score in the next 5 minutes or we go to PKs!!!”)
Sure, but if there is such a team in the extra time of a knockout round, are they going to be playing dynamic, attacking football with a tied score? Or are they going to be happy just to park the bus and hope to maybe steal a lucky counterattack?
Bear in mind also that you’ve already seen 90 minutes of the two teams playing with the score tied (or at least, some of those 90 minutes). And bear in mind that if one of the two teams is super defensive minded, they might lose the pre-extra-time PKs, and be forced to come out of their shell entirely. So the benefits of the plan are:
-when the final whistle blows, the last thing that will be happening will be actual soccer, not PKs
-teams will have to attack during extra time, no incentive to just kick the ball around and wait for PKs
-near-certainty (barring a weird game where one team was ahead for almost all of the 90 minutes until the other team equalized at the very last moment, but then that first time wins the PKs) of a major shakeup of what’s already been going on for 90 minutes
And the drawbacks are:
-If there is a team that can play an absolutely unbreakable stultifying defense, and if they win the PKs, and if they would have been dynamic and aggressive without the new rule, and if you don’t find it exciting to see the other team desperately trying to break through the immovable object… then the extra time will be more boring than it otherwise would have been
Seems like a positive overall in my book.
I can see the arguments for PKs prior to the extra periods. I wouldn’t necessarily object either.
Though, I will say our opinions as to how teams play in extra periods is somewhat warped by when these tournaments that have extra periods and PKs usually take place. With the exception of the upcoming Qatar WC (which actually I think will be a fascinating experiment for the reason I’m going to lay out in the upcoming sentences), World Cups, European Championships, Copa Americas, Gold Cups, etc. are played in the summer months. Most leagues where these events are held don’t play during the summer - because it’s too hot. Yet that’s when these tournaments are held, and not eve that, but its played after the long season, which includes not only the regular domestic league season, but also various Cup competitions during the season, and for some, Champions League player. Some of these players have played over 50 games, and then they are charged with playing during the summer. So of course they are going to be exhausted and of course when going over 90 mins, they are going to drastically slow down - that may lead teams to decide to play more defensively as there is a great risk of playing attacking soccer with exhausted players - you leave too much room behind you without the energy to get back when you lose the ball.
Is it? The OP is pretty open. It asks for ways to get rid of penalty kicks to decide a game. The OP’s own suggestion is basically overtime until there’s a winner (which is what many sports do to avoid ties). I don’t see how a suggestion to reduce times in normal play is out of the scope of the thread.
I don’t necessarily think of that as entirely a bad thing. Something about the gameplay is going to have to change. Maybe have a gradual escalation. For the first extra time, no goal kicks if the ball goes over the end line within the goal box. For the next extra time, if the ball goes over the end line in the penalty box. For a hypothetical third and following extra times, anywhere over the end line.
And stopping playing soccer and starting to take PKs isn’t changing a fundamental rule of the game? Plenty of reasonable proposals involve changing a fundamental rule of the game, the question is whether it’s a rule that can be changed without rendering the game unrecognizable.
For instance, I think that “every 5 minutes in extra time the dimension of the goal increases 6 inches in each direction” would be a fine rule, because soccer-with-a-somewhat-larger-goal would, I suspect, still play out an awful lot like soccer, just soccer with more scoring. But of course that’s basically logistically impossible.
(Note, by the way, that I’m not actively endorsing this idea, that goalie-using-hands leads to corner kick… I’m just proposing it as a similar but (arguably?) better variation of the goal-kicks-become-corner-kicks idea that duality72 proposed. It’s a rule that encourages and rewards offense, which encourages scoring, which discourages ties. Whether it would be “good” or not at least partly comes down to whether gameplay with this rule active would still resemble “normal” soccer, with the offense just amped up 5%, or whether the strategies teams adopted would be so bizarre and so specific to the proposed rule that the game would no longer seem like soccer.)
For the record I think the idea of corner kicks to decide the winner is a terrible idea. My vote is a golden goal period followed by PKs. The laws of the game currently allow for both.
How about allow an additional substitute in Extra time? This will
i) Make the game more interesting and likely to result in a goal as a fresh(er) pair of legs might do the trick. Navas’s run in the 2010 final which setup Iniesta’s goal and Gotze goal in 2014 show how much of an impact subs can have.
and
ii) Perhaps make results in normal time more likely as managers don’t try to preserve subs for ET and perhaps even worse bring one on in ET only for the purposes of penalties.
These sort of rules—how to choose the winner of a tied game in elimination rounds—are decided by the organizers of a particular tournament.
These are only tournament rules so they are somewhat flexible. The FIFA Laws of the Game, however, are in place globally and across all levels of FIFA-sanctioned play.
Expand the rosters to 30 players for knockout tourneys (and FA Cup fixtures). After 120 minutes, take all of the “starters” off and put in 11 fresh players and start playing 15-minute periods until you have a winner (no golden goal). Sure, the deeper teams will have the advantage, but it’s at least still soccer and also gives the bench players motivation after all 3 subs have been made, and allows for the unlikely hero to make his mark in history. Motivation for having a cohesive ‘B’ team will also help with player development.