Extra-time was a fairly drab affair, so the best thing about it was another opportunity to talk about how soccer should adapt the tennis tiebreak method for taking turns in a PK shootout. In tennis, one player serves first for the first point in the tiebreak. Then the 2nd player serves twice in a row and after that the two players take turns, each serving twice in a row. The idea is to minimize the advantage of going first Yesterday, Italy lost the advantage of going first on the 2nd PK when they missed. But let's look at the situation after Rashford missed on England's 3rd PK, giving back the advantage. Using the tennis method (sometimes called ABBA), England would shoot again. Their 4th PK taker, Sancho, would be shooting with the score tied 2-2 with a chance to give England the lead. Instead, using the traditional AB AB method, Italy immediately regains the advantage of going first with Bernardeschi making his PK putting pressure on Sancho to again play catch-up. FIFA gave ABBA a short trial run a few years ago. As far as I know, the first PK shootout involving senior teams came at the Algarve Tournament in Portugal, in the Bronze Medal match between Canada (GK Stephanie Labbé) and Sweden (GK Hedvig Lindahl). The match with the PKs is still on the internet: Algarve 2019, PKs start about at about 2:53:00 of the video The referee is Anna-Marie Keighley (New Zealand)
Yes. Shooting first is a clear advantage when it goes about shootouts. As a matter of fact, all my attention on the coin toss is only focused in finding out who'll shoot first because I know this. Having seen the 4 penalty shootouts of this euro, I can tell it to you: the first shooting team won 4 out of 4 shootouts (100% of the time). The 2nd striker has an extra pressure because there's no one after him. Yesterday, on Italy's 5th shot, the outcome was either to score and win the euro or miss and have another chance. However, in the case of England's 5th shot, the outcome was either to survive and have another chance or to miss and lose it all. There's no doubt the pressure is more negative in the second case than in the first one. Same logic actually applies for the 5 shots, and there's no reason why the same team would systematically benefit of it. If the shootout order would be ABBAABBAAB, then the team having shot the most would switch 5 times, making things a lot more balanced. I'm 100% in favor of it. And thanks for this thread.
That Euro stuff is just anecdotal evidence. Peru eliminated Paraguay in the Copa America even though they did not shoot first. And as a Colombian fan I WISH kicking first was an advantage. We would have eliminated Argentina in this Copa.
Sorry, I forgot to tell in my post but the first striker advantage is stastically proven. According to historical results, the team shooting first has 2 out of 3 chances to win. That's of course not 100% as that was the case in the euro, but that's still twice more chances than the 2nd striker, which is quite massive.
It is nitpicking to say we must change the rules. Only fans really complain about this sort of thing. Players and managers know that a lot more goes into it other than the sequential order of a spot kick. Other variables that are intangible usually make things just a lottery.
I agree but when watching the coin toss the captain that wins the toss always selects for his team to shoot first. The ones I’ve been able to see, anyway. So the players apparently have a belief that shooting first has some kind of advantage.
True. But after a match I have never heard a player, manager or pundit say we lost this shootout tonight becuase of the darn alternating rules! If we would have gone first we would have gone through. Just does not happen.
The first article I read on statistical studies of the advantage of shooting first was on Soccemetrics. Of course we all know that going first doesn't guarantee victory in the shootout.. Kicking first IS an advantage and knowing it gives you all the more reason to be mad at your team for blowing it in PKs. (Tee-hee!)
I wouldn’t expect anyone to. After spending 120 minutes trying to execute during the match what they had worked on for days/weeks during training they no doubt lament over what went wrong during the two hours of open play than what went wrong during the 5-10 minutes of what many players and coaches consider to be a lottery, even if they all prefer to kick first.
That's a weak argument. They are supposed to be competitors, therefore able to handle the pressure and take control of their fate. Of course they'll never admit they couldn't resist to pressure, for this or anything else. If they would do, then they should better retire from professional sport. It remains nonetheless true that pressure is stronger on the second striker, statistically proven, and actually avoided by players themselves. If there's a way to balance that out, then we should go for it. You actually have no argument against the proposal.
But who places blame on anything they deem to have been an advantage? It shows me that they don’t view it as a priority excuse. But I’m not convinced that equates to irrelevancy. If they’re always selecting to shoot first after winning the coin toss then the players must feel there is less pressure than shooting second. The same could be said for hosting the second leg of a two-legged tie. Most players and coaches prefer it yet won’t use it as an excuse after losing when they felt it was an advantage beforehand.
Technically he said it was an advantage not that he would have won if it were not for the advantage but point well taken. Look, I understand people like to complain in this day and age about every little rule but it just sounds like excuses.
I'm trying to find a way we can better represent the PK shootout using the tennis-tiebreak / ABBA method. My graphic design skills are virtually non-existent and these tables may not mean much without some explanation, but I'm going to show a draft of my work in case anyone's interested In a hypothetical Italy/ England shootout with the tennis tiebreak/ ABBA method, the crucial moment is after Rashford's miss in the 3rd round. England held the advantage after Pickford saved Italy's 2nd PK, Belotti's PK. But England lost the advantage after Bonucci made Italy's 3rd attempt and Rashford missed England's. In the tennis tiebreak system, however, at this point England would shoot again, with the chance to still force Italy to play catch up. Instead, in the orthodox AB AB system, Italy has automatically regained the advantage of the coin flip. In the hypothetical table, that's why I put the ?? marks by Sancho and Bernardeschi's PKs, because using ABBA, England and Sancho would be shooting first in the 4th round of PKs rather than Italy and Bernardeschi
A statistical advantage that large is not is clearly inequitable. To say its nit picking or making excuses shows a lack of understanding when it comes to statistics, anything greater than 5% is seen as clear sign of a trend let alone the numbers we are talking here. The original poster brings up a great point and I personally believe this would make the shoot fairer.
Anybody recall what period of time or tournament was the ABBAABB format used? I know it was tried fairly briefly not too long ago but not sure when or where exactly. Personally I liked the ABBA system. PKs will always be a bit of a lottery but that doesn't mean that the coin toss needs to be part of that lottery.
IFAB approved trial use of ABBA in March 2017 for certain "lower-level" competitions like U-17, U-19. The first use of it, as far as I know, between senior sides took place between Sweden and Canada's women's national teams at the tournament in Algarve, Portugal that month. I don't know when the trials ended. I also don't know when the trials will resume (tee-hee!) ADD The answer you're looking for is in an SI article by Ignacio Palacios-Huerta. Palacios-Huerta is one of the statisticians who pioneered the study of the fairness (or unfairness) of the PK shootout. His initial work first instigated the IFAB to adopt a trial period for the ABBA system modeled on the tennis tiebreak method.
It is an excuse. There's a lot more things that go into winning or losing a shootout other than the sequential order. As a Colombian fan I surely know this over the last decade.
Nobody is denying that there are other factors. We're just saying that the coin toss should be made into less of a factor. College football (whose overtime is quite similar to a PK shootout) realized a long time ago that the sequential order matters and they designed the rules to minimize this factor. When its so simple to do, why not?
I do not like the College Football rule either and think they should just go back to ties but that is another story for another thread. I just do not see the need for change just because of a psychological or stress related statistic. To me it would be like saying teams that play the first game in a tournament and win statistically advance at a higher level than the other teams in the same groups that do not. Are we going to have simultaneous kickoffs now in every tournament just because of a stat? Do teams have to play the worst team in the group as the first match in some weird beat up on the minnow rotation? Just makes no sense to me. IT would lead to evaluating every single rule and trying to balance things out do to stress and psychology.
That's why I wrote "when its simple to do so". This change would literally take no effort at all. But yeah, I'm also perfectly fine with ties and think tiebreakers like shootouts should be only used when necessary.