Penalty Shoot-Out!

Roberto Baggio misses Italy's final penalty against Brazil in 1994

By Dr Neil: The most nerve-racking element of the game!  No other moment in football can match it for anticipation - the torturous mixture of expectancy and uncertainty. Football distilled into its component elements.

Football fans cheer when their team is awarded a penalty, yet when two teams are level after 120 minutes of football and have to be differentiated by a penalty shoot-out, the only crowd noise is the low hum of nervous chatter, as fans discuss permutations and expectations, preparing their nerves for an inevitable shredding.

Commentators often proclaim that penalty shoot-outs are a lottery, reducing teams to the fickleness of Lady Luck.  This is blatantly untrue.  Penalties test the skill of a player to strike a ball from 12 yards; there is little luck involved.  Commentators also state that penalties are unfair, inflicting instant villain status on hard-working players based on one errant kick.  This proclamation stands up to more rigorous inspection.  Are penalties the fairest way of deciding football matches?  Why should only one aspect of football be the deciding measure between two teams?  Here, we look at some possible alternatives to the traditional penalty shoot-out.

Alternatives within Football
American Style Shoot-Out - Up until the 1999 season, Major League Soccer took inspiration from Ice Hockey and ended ‘tie games’ with shoot-outs.¬† Players stood 35 yards from goal and had five seconds to score past the goalkeeper, taking as many touches as they need. Surely this is a truer test of footballing skill than a penalty?

More penalties!¬†¬† – Counterintuitive, but when deciding which team is better, why do we only test half of them?¬† Why not have all 11 players take a penalty?¬† This would eliminate the need for players to ‘step up’ and reduce the burden of pressure, as every player would be taking one.¬† This could also penalise teams who have had a man sent off – they would only have 10 penalty kicks!

And what methods do other sports use to decide tied games?
Hockey – Probably the sport with the greatest similarity to football in terms of aims and objectives. Hockey uses the drop-off system, whereby additional periods of golden goal extra time are played, but with more and more players ‘dropping off’ the pitch, leaving fewer players on the pitch, the theory being that¬†the increasingly¬†open playing field will eventually result in a goal being scored.¬† This could easily be translated to football, but could lead to matches lasting inordinately long¬†stretches of time¬† – and previous experiments with ‘golden goal’ and ‘silver goal’ extra-time periods were unsuccessful.

Cricket - On the rare occasions that cup cricket matches are tied, or on the frequent occasions where they are rained off, cricket matches are decided by a bowl off.  Five players bowl two balls each at an unguarded wicket Рa test of accuracy.  This could be easily translated to football.  Five players could shoot at an unguarded goal from the half way line with extra kicks or an increased distance being used if the scores are level after all kicks had been taken.

Rugby - When cup games of rugby end with the scores tied, the players take a sequence of penalty kicks, but from different positions around the pitch.  In football, instead of five penalties, you could have one penalty and then four free kicks from across the length of the edge of the penalty area.

What are your thoughts on football’s¬†present penalty shoot-out system?¬† Let us know in the comments.