No more penalties in the World Cup

the collective penalty, or the end of defensive game in the knock out stage

2006-09-28T16:30:00.000-07:00

It has been very common to see World Cup matches in which a team tries to draw by any means in the expectation of winning in the penalty shootouts. There are several examples. In the last World Cup, the nasty Ukranian game against Switzerland was one of those.

With the Collective Penalty, the team ending the match with more talented players will probably win. The result of a Collective Penalty with 5 attackers against 3 defenders, without the offside rule, should be an attackers' win if they are moderately able.

As a consequence, a team defending a draw with eight or nine defenders and one or two forwards won't be able to win in a Collective Penalty shootout. Tactics would change accordingly and even weaker teams would be forced to try scoring before the shootouts. This will probably improve the game.

how to replace the penalty shootouts

2006-09-28T16:16:00.000-07:00

My proposed solution is a series of five Collective Penalties. The Collective Penalty (CP) is a team play in which 5 attackers have to score against three defenders and the goalkeeper in less than half a minute. The CP starts as a usual kick-off. There's no offside. No fouls are allowed: a foul by the defending team is counted as a goal; a foul by the attacking team is a miss. If the ball leaves the defending half of the pitch, it's also a miss. Any of the players who finished the game can take part in any of the 5 CPs and the extra CPs if the series ends in a draw.

how a shootout can (almost) ruin your birthday

2006-07-17T16:51:00.000-07:00

From the movie Heroes (translation from Spanish):

Michel Platini approaches the box to shoot the fourth penalty for France. It is his 31st birthday... [Platini misses]... In his birthday, Platini suffers the worst moment in his career, while being watched, live, by over a billion people. In that instant he could not imagine that, in spite of his shot, the day will end victoriously.

killing, the German way

2006-07-17T15:13:00.000-07:00

Did you know that the penalty shootouts were invented by a German referee in 1970? Since then, the German national team has progressed to the following round in the World Cup every time it faced a penalty shootout: four out of four, in 1982 (semifinal, beating Platini's France), 1986 (quarterfinals, against Sanchez Mexico), 1990 (semifinal, verus Lineker's England) and 2006 (beating Riquelme's Argentina).