Penalty shoot-out (association football)
Penalty shootouts (officially referred to as kicks from the penalty mark) are sometimes used to decide which team progresses to the next stage of a tournament (or wins the tournament) following a draw in a game of association football. Kicks during a shootout should not be confused with penalty kicks, which are similar, but are part of normal play during a match and governed by different rules.
Overview
Shootouts are almost always used only in elimination (as opposed to league) games, to decide who will progress to the next stage of a tournament. Usually extra time has been played first. However, the Copa Libertadores has a penalty shootout immediately after the end of a two-legged tie that is level on aggregate, with no extra time played; since 2005, this only takes place if there is no winner on away goals. In the late 1980s, a number of European football leagues including Hungary, Yugoslavia and Norway experimented with kicks from the penalty mark immediately after tied league matches, with the winner gaining one point more than the loser; this experiment was soon abandoned. In the United States, Major League Soccer initially also had a shootout immediately following the end of regulation, even during league matches. This has since been abandoned in an effort to follow more traditional rules.
Recently, the English Community Shield final has been settled using penalties, following the normal 90 minutes of play, but no extra time. In 2003, Manchester United defeated Arsenal in the penalty shootout to win the Community Shield.
Kicks from the penalty mark are not part of the penalty kick law. However, they follow essentially the same procedure as penalty kicks and are popularly referred to as "penalties". Unlike penalty kicks, players other than the kicker and the defending goalkeeper must remain in the centre circle (other than the kicking team's goalkeeper, who stands on the junction of goal line and penalty area near to the assistant referee).
Goals scored during the shootout are not included in the final score. Furthermore, strictly speaking, kicks from the penalty mark do not result in a game winner; the game remains a tie and the result of the kicks is merely used to select a winner to progress to the next stage of the tournament. However, in popular usage a team is often said to have "won on penalties", and such games often have their result rendered as (for example): "Team A 2–2 Team B a.e.t, Team B won 5–4 on penalties".
Procedure
The following is a summary of the procedure for kicks from the penalty mark:
- The team to take the first kick is decided by a coin toss.
- All players other than the kicker and the goalkeepers must remain in the field's centre circle (see above).
- Each kick is taken in the general manner of a penalty kick. Each kick is taken from the penalty mark, with the goal defended only by the opposing goalkeeper. The goalkeeper must remain between the goal-posts on his goal-line until the ball has been kicked.
- Each kicker can kick the ball only once per attempt. If the ball is blocked by the goalkeeper, the kicker cannot score from the rebound (unlike a normal penalty kick).
- Teams take alternating turns to kick from the penalty mark in attempt to score a goal, until each has taken five kicks. However, if one side has scored more goals than the other could possibly reach with all of their remaining kicks, the shootout ends regardless of the number of kicks remaining.
- If at the end of these five rounds of kicks the teams have scored an equal number of goals, sudden death rounds of one kick each are used until one side scores and the other does not.
- Only players who were on the field at the end of play are allowed to take kicks; no substitutes can be used.
- No player is allowed to take a second kick from the penalty mark until all other players on his team (who have not received a red card) have taken a kick from the penalty mark (including the goalkeepers). However, if at the beginning of kicks from the penalty mark one side has more players on the field than the other, then the side with more players shall select an appropriate number of players to not take part. For example, if Team A has 11 players but Team B only has 10, then Team A will choose one player not to take part. Note that it is not allowed to de-select a goalkeeper from having to take part in kicking from the penalty mark: players de-selected cannot play any part in the procedure.
History
Yosef Dagan, a former member of the Israeli football association, is the creator of this original game-decider method and introduced the idea to FIFA after the Israeli national football team was denied from the 1968 Summer Olympics semi-finals, due to a coin toss. The idea was adopted by the UEFA and FIFA. Before then, a tie was decided by luck of the draw as, for example, in 1968 when Italy made it to the European Championship Final against the USSR.
The first ever penalty shootout took place in 1970 between Hull City and Manchester United during the Watney Cup, and was won by Manchester United. The first footballer to take a kick was George Best, and the first to miss was Denis Law.
The first major international tournament to be decided by a penalty shootout was the Euro 76 final between Czechoslovakia and West Germany. Czechoslovakia won 5–3, and the deciding kick was converted by Antonín Panenka with a "chip" after Uli Hoeneß had shot the previous kick over the crossbar.
The finals of three major FIFA competitions have gone to penalty shootouts. Two of these took place in the same stadium, the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, USA.
- In the 1994 World Cup, Brazil and Italy ended extra time in a scoreless tie. Brazil went on to win the shootout 3–2. [1]
- Like the 1994 final, the 1999 Women's World Cup final between the USA and China was scoreless after extra time. The United States team, who were hosting the tournament, won the shootout 5–4, with the winning shot by Brandi Chastain punctuated by her famous shirt-stripping moment. [2]
- The 2006 World Cup Final also went to a penalty shootout and was won by Italy 5-3 against France in Berlin.
Goalkeepers have been known to win shootouts by their kicking; for example, in a Euro 2004 quarterfinal, Portugal goalkeeper Ricardo Pereira saved a kick (without gloves) from England's Darius Vassell, and immediately followed the save by scoring the winning shot. [3] Another example is Vélez Sársfield's José Luis Chilavert in the Copa Libertadores 1994 finals.
In 2005, a new British record was established when a shootout between Tunbridge Wells and Littlehampton involved 40 kicks being taken. [4]
Then, in May 2005, Arsenal beat Manchester United 5-4 in the first ever F.A. Cup final to be decided on penalties. [5] The following year, Liverpool beat West Ham United in the FA Cup final's second ever penalty shootout. [6]
Also in 2005, a place in the World Cup was directly determined by a penalty shootout for the first time. The 2006 FIFA World Cup qualifying playoff between Australia and Uruguay ended 1–1 on aggregate, with Uruguay winning the first leg 1–0 at home and Australia winning the second at home by the same score. A scoreless 30 minutes of extra time was followed by a shootout, which Australia won 4–2.
Statistics
Below are the overall penalty shootout records of countries at major tournaments. The table is ordered by the number of shootouts won, followed by the success rate.
| Country | World Cup (Won-Lost) |
Euro (Won-Lost) |
Copa América (Won-Lost) |
Total (Won-Lost) |
% Won |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Template:GERf | 4-0 | 1-1 | - | 5-1 | 83% |
| Template:ARGf | 3-1 | - | 2-2 | 5-3 | 63% |
| Template:BRAf | 2-1 | - | 3-2 | 5-3 | 63% |
| Template:FRAf | 2-2 | 1-1 | - | 3-3 | 50% |
| Template:URUf | - | - | 3-3 | 3-3 | 50% |
| Template:PORf | 1-0 | 1-0 | - | 2-0 | 100% |
| Template:TCHf | - | 2-0 | - | 2-0 | 100% |
| Template:COLf | - | - | 2-1 | 2-1 | 67% |
| Template:MEXf | 0-2 | - | 2-1 | 2-3 | 40% |
| Template:ESPf | 1-2 | 1-1 | - | 2-3 | 40% |
| Template:ITAf | 1-3 | 1-1 | - | 2-4 | 33% |
| Template:BELf | 1-0 | - | - | 1-0 | 100% |
| Template:BULf | 1-0 | - | - | 1-0 | 100% |
| Template:CZEf | - | 1-0 | - | 1-0 | 100% |
| Template:HONf | - | - | 1-0 | 1-0 | 100% |
| Template:KORf | 1-0 | - | - | 1-0 | 100% |
| Template:UKRf | 1-0 | - | - | 1-0 | 100% |
| Template:USAf | - | - | 1-0 | 1-0 | 100% |
| Template:DENf | - | 1-1 | - | 1-1 | 50% |
| Template:IRLf | 1-1 | - | - | 1-1 | 50% |
| Template:SWEf | 1-0 | 0-1 | - | 1-1 | 50% |
| Template:NEDf | 0-1 | 1-3 | - | 1-4 | 20% |
| Template:ENGf | 0-3 | 1-2 | - | 1-5 | 17% |
| Template:CHIf | - | - | 0-1 | 0-1 | 0% |
| Template:ECUf | - | - | 0-1 | 0-1 | 0% |
| Template:PERf | - | - | 0-1 | 0-1 | 0% |
| Template:YUGf | 0-1 | - | - | 0-1 | 0% |
| Template:SWIf | 0-1 | - | - | 0-1 | 0% |
| Template:PARf | - | - | 0-2 | 0-2 | 0% |
Criticisms and alternatives
Penalty shootouts have received the criticism that their outcomes do not necessarily indicate the better side during the match, and that some other method should be used to either encourage a non-tied result or to resolve a tied game in some other manner.
One argument in favour of penalty shootouts is the perceived drama involved.[citation needed] A counter argument with regards to the argument that the penalty shootout is a "lottery" to see who proceeds is the fact that the game would have to be tied for 120 minutes before requiring the penalty shootouts; that is, in the given match both teams were level and regardless of the method used as a decider, it will likely be an unsatisfying way of deciding a game between two very level teams.[citation needed]
Golden goal and silver goal methods to encourage a non-tied result before the end of the match have been used previously; however, IFAB discontinued their use in 2004. These often had the opposite effect, as teams were extremely cautious during extra time, because one goal would mean defeat.[citation needed]
In the event of a tied game, current alternatives to penalty shootouts include replaying a match that has ended in a tie (as still occurs in the quarter-finals and earlier rounds of the English FA Cup) or utilising an away goals rule.
Other suggestions[citation needed] have included using elements of game play such as most shots on goal, most corner kicks awarded, fewest cautions and sendings-off, or having ongoing extra time with teams compelled to remove players at progressive intervals. These proposals have not been authorised by IFAB.
In another proposed[citation needed] alternative, the penalty shootout would remain, but would never be the final act of the game. Instead it could come before extra time and still only function as a tie-breaker if the former would prove to be indecisive. That way, the team that lost the penalty shootout would still be able to make up for the loss during normal field play.
In the 2006 FIFA World Cup final of Italy vs France, there was a penalty shootout and calls by television commentators[citation needed] that in the World Cup final there should be continuous extra time periods until a golden goal is scored, as having a shootout is not fair and too arbitrary to decide the World Champion.[citation needed]
American experiments
The North American Soccer League in the 1970s and then Major League Soccer in 1990s experimented with a variation of the shootout procedure. A shootout attempt consisted of a player starting with the ball 35 yards from the goal and having five seconds to score a goal with as many touches as he wished in that time span. This procedure is similar to that used in an ice hockey penalty shot. As with a standard shootout, this variation used a best-of-five-kicks model, and if the score was still tied, the tiebreaker would head to an extra frame of one attempt per team. MLS abandoned this experiment in 2000.
See also
- Penalty shootout (unqualified)—information on penalty shootouts in other sports.
Bibliography
- On Penalties by Andrew Anthony (ISBN 022406116X)