SoccerShout.com

Rethinking The Game (RTG) is a series of blog posts on changing minor aspects of the game of football.  You may wish to read the introduction to the series if you missed it.

Rethinking The Shootout Index: [Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5]

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In the last post I described why penalty shootouts defy the expectation that the better team will enjoy the advantage and win more often than not.  The pressure of the situation forces mistakes from otherwise dependable players.  The format of the shootout - the ease of scoring and the low number of penalties - guarantees that it is mistakes, not skill, that decide the winner.

The good news is that the fix for this is as simple as it is obvious.

If the penalty shot is too easy, then make it harder.  If there aren’t enough penalty kicks in the shootout, then add some more.

The simplest way to make the penalty shot harder is to move the penalty spot further away from the goal.  Nothing could be simpler and more effective.  My recommendation would be to make the average conversion rate drop from 80% to around 25%.  This might mean adding a second ’shootout’ spot maybe 15 or 18 yards from the goal.

This would immediately lift the pressure from the players.  The expectation now is that the players will miss more often than they score.  This is no shame in not scoring from that distance.

Other benefits include

• Turning the penalty shot into a game of skill.  Goalkeepers will no longer be forced to guess which way to dive.  They can wait to see which way the shot is going.  Goalkeepers will also have a chance to save a well-taken penalty, just like they save well-taken free-kicks.
• It puts the focus back onto players who score, rather than those who miss.  People will remember that superb penalty that won the shootout, rather than that dolt who slipped while they were taking the kick.

The second part of the magic formula is to increase the number of penalties taken - I think letting each team take 10 penalties is about right.

Wouldn’t this take a long time?  The current format of penalty kicks seems to take around 5-6 minutes to complete the five kicks, or around 30-35 seconds per kick.

I would deal with this by having each team take five penalties in succession, but to put a time limit on it - say 90 seconds.  If you start the clock after the first penalty, that leaves over 20 seconds to place the ball down and shoot - fairly reasonable I’d say.  I think we could finish 10 penalties in maybe eight minutes - not too crazy.

The final tweak I’d offer is to replace sudden death with another five penalties per team.  Once again, the goal here is to take the pressure off the individual to a degree.  I’d also use the same five players for all the kicks - let’s have the best players on the line for the tie-breaker.

A nice side effect of this format is that the number of shootouts decided by a single goal will be halved, according to my simulation.  The current format generally produces a single scapegoat who has to live with the ignominy of costing his team the trophy.  The new format will provide some heroes and some villains, but it won’t be so clear cut.

But most importantly, the better team will have a better chance of winning the game.  Pressure becomes less of a factor, penalty kicks become more skillful, and there are more chances for the better team to prove themselves.

Altogether, this format will address the problems that the current format has introduced.

• The weaker team is encouraged to play for penalties because that is there best chance of winning.
• The shootout doesn’t provide a legitimate winner because the result is random.

I’d love to read some comments on what you guys think of this - either comment below or send me an email - soccershout@gmail.com
Coming next: Why the other alternatives to the penalty shootout are fatally flawed, plus come closing thoughts.

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