Soccer Doesn't Suck, Penalty Kicks Do

In a moment of desperation and boredom I tuned into the World Cup. This game, or I should say, the “match” was between extremely talented Spain and extremely untalented, and host nation, Russia. The game was tied one to one when I tuned in at the 79^th minute. The game continued to be tied at the 90^th minute, which is the end of “regulation.” However, the “match” was still knotted up even after the “extra minutes” were added on (for those who may not know, “extra minutes” are determined by the amount of time, during regulation, where soccer was not being played, but the clock was running). Still, a winner was still not decided, even after “overtime” (which is two 15 minute periods of extra time). So the “match” concluded with penalty kicks, in which each team has five tries to score penalty kicks against the opposing team’s goalie. Here, Spain missed more penalty kicks than Russia and so Russia won. In the end the football match was decided in a way that was not really “football” and it felt wrong.

First it is understandable as to why the founders of soccer decided that penalty kicks must be the last alternative to how a tied match should be resolved, as the game has to end some time. Essentially Russia and Spain played most of the game without any scores occurring.  For much of the time nothing remotely competitive was going on on the field, other than Spain passing the ball to each other in the middle of the field and nowhere in the vicinity of the Russian goalie. On the other hand, Russia, it seemed, had a simple strategy – push the game to penalty kicks. In other words, Russia knew they athletically had no shot at beating Spain in the course of the traditional style of soccer.  So, Russia’s best shot at a win was by defeating Spain in penalty. In short, Russia knew it could not beat Spain at soccer, but knew it had a chance at beating Spain in a different form of competition, a form of competition not resembling soccer – penalty kicks.

My argument is that penalty kicks, to determine a victor once overtime has been exhausted, should be removed. This is because it provides an incentive for offensively inferior teams, like Russia, to put all their chips in playing only defense and no incentive to play decent offense. Further, although this was a “major” upset in soccer, it wasn’t a real upset. This is because penalty kicks remove nearly all the parameters that create the soccer identity.  Essentially penalty kicks are a different game entirely from soccer. They remove all defenses, all offense, and simply make the goalie guess which way the shooter decides to kick the ball. So while on paper it would look as though Russia bettered Spain in soccer, Russia actually played much worse than Spain in all statistical analysis of the game, except for “penalty kicks.” Penalty kicks are the equivalent to a game of “Monopoly” that has been going on for a while and both players are tied. In order to break the monopoly tie, the two real estate moguls decide to each roll one dice and whoever rolls higher wins the game. However, all reasonable minds can conclude that although rolling of the dice is a crucial part of the board game, it alone is not the game itself.

The solution is to alter the game, but keep its context still alive, so that the victor can confidently claim that they beat the other team at soccer. The most advantageous and equitable alternative would be to remove players from the field, once regulation has concluded. So there are eleven soccer players per team on the field during regulation, if the game goes to overtime, the game should be brought down to seven players on each side. Yes, this would give an advantage to the more skilled team, but the more skilled team had the same proportionate advantage as to when there were eleven players. In turn, what this does is provide those skilled players more space as to create a shot. This proposal allows the soccer game to be decided within the form and framework of soccer, rather than some other game entirely, called “penalty kicks.”  

… American football can’t come soon enough…