Penalties - Cruel, arbitrary, tortuous and unfair
Lets shift penalties from the end of the game to the beggining..
The penalty shoot-out is the greatest set-piece of sporting drama ever conceived. It is everything that we profess not to like about competition but secretly crave. It has also presented the England football team with a new and infinitely more punishing manner in which to lose.
Sir, After the exciting 6 goal match between Germany and Costa Rica, we seemed to finally have a World Cup, where we would finally be able to see some wonderful attacking football. Unfortunately, by the Second Round, save for a handful of games, most games seemed to revolve around waiting until Extra Time and then onto penalties. Indeed, apart from the Italy vs Germany game in the Semi Final, we did not see any goals during Extra Time, with most teams willing to wait out the 30 minutes, before trying their luck in penalties. Now every one loves the glorious uncertainty that the penalties bring and to be honest, perhaps it is a welcome diversion from some of the tawdry, goaless 120 minutes that precede it.
However, the negative mind set, most players tend to adopt does not make for visually aesthetic football. And one hears of many different solutions from increasing the size of the goal to reducing the number of players on pitch. What about, simply shifting penalties from the end of the match to the beggining of the match. Once a "victor" is decided on penalties, the 90 minutes can be played out and if the game ends in a draw, the "winners" on penalties, will proceed onto the next round. This will allow for atleast one team to atleast go on the attack knowing that a draw will see them out of the tournament. Even if one team looks to play defensively after winning on penalties initially, we are guaranteed at least one team consistently looking for the win. Desperate times call for desperate measure, and though the World Cup transcends the play on the pitch and encompasses so much more on a human level: the tragedies, the human triumph, nationalistic pride, at the end of the day, the billion plus audience bay for only one thing: goals, and plenty of it.
Regards,
Rehan Latif
cybermusings.blogspot.com |
