Penalties

Last night another match ended in a nil all draw after one hundred and twenty minutes of play.  Alright, at times the match was very good with flowing moves, silky skills and exciting attempts on goal but for a lot of the time it was meaningless passing and possession. Once again this great competition, Euro 2012 has had to resort to penalties to sort out the result. There has to be a better way. The whole approach to getting a definitive result needs to be addressed.

Even the concept of extra time needs to be thought through as it has a negative impact upon the game.  After eighty minutes or so of normal time when it looks increasingly likely that a stalemate will ensue you can see the players backing off and saving themselves for a further thirty minutes of play.  The focus turns from trying to win to making sure that they don’t lose and of course this carries on for the subsequent thirty minutes. No side wants to make the mistake that will cost them the game and throws them out of the tournament and so today’s setup promotes conservative and risk averse play rather than the exciting do or die games that people pay to watch.

So what can be done to put the beauty back into the beautiful game that doesn’t undermine its integrity?  Clearly we cannot tamper with anything that happens in the ninety minutes as that would disrupt football on a global scale but extra time has to have a different edge. 

How about points for every corner won, or every piece of attacking play which gets the ball from the opponents play into the six yard box?  Goals would still rule but if there was a draw than these points would decide.  Surely this would encourage attacking play as near misses would have some benefit. 

Or perhaps they could try some things that are a bit more radical.  Here are just a few:

• Reduce the number of players on the pitch to eight each.  This would open up play and make it less easy to defend.
• Play with two balls on the pitch.  I’m not sure how the referee would cope but perhaps there could be two involved.  It would certainly keep the play flowing.
• Don’t allow the goal keeper to touch the ball with his hands.  Clearly this would make it more difficult to save shots and hopefully mean more goals.
• Everyone wear the same colour strips.  This would add an element of confusion and would certainly stir things up.
• Remove the referee altogether and let the fur fly.  This is just plain daft.

There is another match tonight and on paper it looks to be exciting.  Let’s hope it doesn’t end up with a lottery.  In the meantime UEFA, please get your thinking caps on and find a better way of delivering a result.