Penalty shootouts are great to watch in the NCAA tournament in College Soccer. Get rid of them at the (FIFA) international level. Get rid of them in Professional Soccer. At the end of 120 minutes, if the match is still tied, play on. A few minute inhale/exhale break is given after 120 minutes. And then each team must determine which 5 field players they want on the field. 10 vs. 10 field players are now consolidated down to 5 vs. 5. And each team still has their goalkeeper in. However, you can only choose 5 players (of 10) who were still on the field at the end of 120 minutes. Once a player is subbed out, they can no longer come back in. Now the match becomes a true sudden death war till the end, till the death, 5 vs. 5. 12 players remain in the game in total (including the 2 goalkeepers). First team to score, GAME SET MATCH. This would be the most exciting way to end a soccer match, in a major tournament knockout stage. Someone will almost certainly score within 10 minutes or less, since the field is wide open. Therefore, the match will probably end in no longer duration in real time than a penalty shootout anyways. Bring it on. Welcome to "Extreme Time". A more exciting and climactic extended version of Extra Time on steroids. But you can only witness it after the 30 minutes of Extra Time is over with, if still tied. "Hey look kids, Extra time is almost over. They're about to go to EXTREME TIME." Kids would love the drama. The game of soccer just got more exciting for the next generation.
Sounds like a good way to create a new sport based on football BUT such a change is not really "better" it is just different. Actually I dislike any form of sudden death or shootouts or anything that is not actually playing the game. I would like to see the game just continue on until there is a real winner. However that is impractical as several matches in the past have shown including replays after ties and matches just continuing until there is a winner. I do not like any form of tie breaker BUT something must be chosen and penalty shootouts after the end of regular time and thirty minutes of extra time (NOT sudden death) like in the World Cup is about as good as anything else . Your idea would seem to increase the excitement level BUT it would mean that the basic nature of matches would change and I think that change would be very much for the worse.
That's the whole point. There is no perfect system. But the current system is not soccer either. Going to a penalty shootout is not ending a soccer game with traditional soccer. After 120 minutes is up (including the 30 minutes of extra time) .......... If the teams just keep playing until a winner is determined, then it has to be sudden death. You can't have minutes 121 - 150 be in the same format as the original extra time is today. Imagine both teams scoring a goal, and now they have to go to yet another extra time starting in minute 151 - 180, or whatever it would be. A winner has to be determined after no more than 130 minutes or so. Otherwise the winning team would be too tired to play in the next round of the knockout stage if they just played 150+ (or even 180+) minutes of soccer. Penalty shootouts are getting way too monotonous to watch at settling a tie. It's time to think outside the box in terms of enabling each team to be able to end the game playing "soccer" instead of "shootout", and to do it quickly enough, but with added excitement. Every possession now feels like an exciting counter attack in terms of a scoring opportunity, when it's 5 vs. 5. If you want to make it 7 vs. 7, that's the maximum players on the field we should go with, to speed up the climax ending of a thrilling finish.
I just simply do not agree. That 5v5 or 7v7 would be just very wrong and produce situations that belong indoor or in Futsal not in football. I REALLY see no reason to change anything in the way extra time or shootouts are handled except, maybe, to lengthen extra time. Football once had full replays for matches that had to have a victor. I really have no problem with that either. I don't like shootouts but I believe they are MUCH better than your suggestion. While it may seem logical that fewer men and sudden death would result in more excitement I do not believe that would be the case as coaches would be VERY conservative and not take any chances. That has been the case with many experiments that have been suggested and tested to increase excitement. I would expect to see attack with only one or two or, at the most, three players so as not to leave the back short handed. It is like the suggestion often made that the offside law be changed or dropped. People that suggest that do not realize that before the offside law teams played effective formations like 9-1 or 8-2 with only one or two forwards to prevent defensive problems. It seems to defy logic but I have seen that attempts to add offense and excitement to football, I think there is plenty already, usually result in slower play and more defense. The current system works, mostly, and I see no need of a change. If it ain't broke don't fix it. But I do not think I have any reason to worry as FIFA is MUCH more conservative about law changes than I so even if they consider this or something like it I will be long in my grave and, hopefully, playing left mid in a much more pleasant place before it gets implemented.
Movement, I'm really sorry if your team lost on pens or whatever..... You know what was interesting? That "ABBA" system they used for shootouts. (Not playing loud music, but changing the kick order like in tennis tiebreaks.) They trialled it in the Euro U17 semi-final in 2017: Maybe that's a way to make penalties more interesting? The old system unfairly helps the team who kick first, and they usually win (90% of managers prefer to go first). In England, the men's League Cup used "ABBA" last season, but they've abandoned it because it hurt their brains: - https://www.efl.com/news/2017/july/...to-be-trialled-across-competitions-in-201718/
I find penalty kicks to be quite dramatic and a perfectly fine way to end a match that has gone on through extra time with no result. I would prefer a sudden death extra time--first goal wins--rather than playing the full 15 minutes. If you played 5 v 5, can you imagine the amount of running the 10 players would need to do? Brutal. But, yea, the match would end fairly quickly, I think.
The problem is that is not what would happen. At 5v5 no more than two players would be allowed into the attack to prevent defensive problems. Also the extra space would result in VERY conservative defending as every effort would be made to prevent 1v1 situations as much as possible. The idea of fewer players sounds good but the practice would be very different and the difference would quickly become even more boring than what happens now. If anyone really wants more excitement then just play 11v11 and make it sudden death. Teams would continue to attack in most cases, as by attacking it would be the only way to win, but the nature of the game would not be changed much. Personally I would not like it much but it would be better than reducing the numbers. But as I said I don't really have to worry about it happening as FIFA would never make a change like that in the few years I have left.
During the US college soccer regular season, if the game is tied at the end of regulation time (90 minutes), they play two 10 minute overtimes. But the overtimes are sudden victory/death. In other words, if a team scores a goal it wins. At the end of the two overtimes, meaning neither team has scored a goal, it's recorded as a tie, which is what it is. I haven't done a data study of whether the better or poorer rated team has the higher percentage of overtime wins, but my sense from years working with the data is that the better rated team wins much more of the time than the poorer rated team wins. Personally, for knockout games that must have a winner, I prefer the system when I was playing a long time ago, for a game tied at the end of regulation time: First, the teams play two 15 minute overtimes. These are not sudden victory/death. Second, the teams play two 5 minute overtimes, which also are not sudden victory/death. Third, the teams go to kicks from the mark. I actually played a game, way back when, that went the whole distance, for a rec team. I have no idea who won on KFTM.
While I was coaching a U15 girls team and working on my second PHD I also played keeper for a pretty good club team. (I have NO idea how I managed to have time for all that as I also held a near full time job [25-30 hours a week] in TV repair) I did manage the time and the team I played for got to a regional semi-final that was played under rules where the overtimes were two full halves but was sudden death. No one scored in either overtime so we went to PKs. The PKs went two full rounds and even the keepers were exhausted so each chance was about 50/50 but every time they missed or I saved we duplicated their performance on the next kick. At the end of the second round I watched the opposing keeper actually fall down as he tried to kick his PK and it just slow rolled to me. Then on my kick I hit it firmly with power directly at the keeper's face. Instead of catching or blocking the ball the keeper ducked. After the game the only reason either of us (the keepers) discovered what had happened is we were told by the refs and our teammates. PKs are remarkably tiring for keepers. I was fine through two full games but the PKs were just debilitating. That is one reason I hate PKs as a decider, there is just nothing better if you actually want to end some games. Without PKs I think the '99 WC would still be playing. Mia would be getting REAL tired by now.
In tournament knockout rounds where you have to have a winner, there's not really a better solution than KFTPM. Think about it. Croatia already looked exhausted by the men's final, but can you imagine how tired they would have looked if all of their knockout games had just continued indefinitely until someone scored?
But just leaving 10 total players on the field at the end of the game is the ultimate climax to end a game. It would end on a goal, therefore the score ends 2-1, instead of an official 1-1 draw with penalties. It's stupid to have a game that ends in penalties be considered a "Draw" as to the "official" result of the match. There has to be an official winner, even by the result. Now in Group play, you can have a draw (no extra time). But in tournament play, you need a true winner, and an official winner by result. 10 players, 5 v 5, on the field, let them settle it. It can be a breathtaking dramatic ending.