World Cup Post Mortem

[jambutty]

Once again a thread http://www.accringtonweb.com/forum/f93/pitch-22778.html has been pulled away from the topic of football pitch sizes to the World Cup. So I’m starting this thread for a discussion on the World Cup – a sort of post mortem.

In the other thread rob posed the question of replays in the event of a draw after extra time and I assume implied that penalties should not be employed.

The seeding of teams.

I assume that seeding is done to prevent some of the alleged minnows from doing the unthinkable and actually winning through to end up as overall winners. Or put another way the minnows have the cards stacked against them from the outset. A bit unfair, don’t you think? Well I do!

Every team that has qualified to take part in the World Cup finals has done so on merit. They have qualified from their own sections and as such deserve to be pitched against whomever the draw dictates and not be seeded in such a way that their chances of progressing after the league phase is reduced. We had each mini league with two seeded teams and two minnows with the top two going through to the knockout stage. Very few minnows get past the league stage and if they do the preset knockout rounds practically mean that a minnow will play a seeded team.

To sum up – in my view all teams that qualify for the World Cup finals should be drawn in the normal manner. That is either the first four drawn form the first mini league, the second four draw form the next mini league and so on or as each team is drawn it is placed in the first mini league then the next, then the next and so on.

If it means that the two hot favourites meet each other in the early rounds and one of them gets knocked out, then so be it. It’s called level paying field competition.

The question of replays in the knockout stages of a competition such as the World Cup is really a non-starter, mainly because the competition is organised to take place during a finite amount of time. There just isn’t the time for replays without extending the duration of the competition. To try and fit replays in during the final two weeks would put those teams involved in a replay at a great disadvantage when they have to play the next round. Then again what would happen if the replay were also a draw? After giving your all for 120 minutes, players need three or four days to recover if they are to be fit enough for another match. I won’t even go down the injuries road.

So penalties after 120 minutes is the fairest way of all.

The Golden Goal was tried and abandoned and in my view quite rightly so. The game of football is to be played over a specific amount of TIME. If a Golden Goal is scored during extra time the losing team does not have the OPPORTUNITY to launch a response and try to get back on equal terms. But what if a goal is scored in the dying seconds of extra time, I hear people argue. That’s football. The match has gone its allotted duration and both teams knew what that duration would be at the outset.

So taking penalties is the fairest way of finding a winner. Penalties are part and parcel of the normal game. Where it can be argued that penalties after extra time are a lottery is that after 120 minutes of play, the players are tired and not of their best. Very true!

There are two possible solutions to that. No extra time and penalties after a draw during normal full time. The players would be fresher.

My other solution is radical. Take the penalties BEFORE a match starts. Then in the event of a draw after extra time the team who won the penalty shoot out would go through.

It is rare that a team is fielded that is not the best one available so their best players would be available to take a penalty and no one would be tired. During the course of a match players are substituted and sent off so come the end of the match a team may not have its usual penalty takers on the pitch.

Of course this might encourage the penalty shoot out winners to play for a draw but the losers would have to come out and try and win the match. That would make for a much more exciting match and certainly prevent both teams playing for a draw.

Radical I know, but before the reader condemns it out of hand, think it through and try to imagine such a scenario.

[RossendaleRed]

No post mortem for me jambutty, unique double for me. Stanley winning the conference and italy winning the world cup.

[junetta]

In theory, Jambutty, that sounds a brilliant idea but.............? The logistics sound a bit tricky. The penalties would have to be played in front of the crowd which could encite the supporters of both teams into some sort of battle.

I agree that the match would be more exciting but then again it could result in more diving, and maybe more cheating.

Work on it mate, it isn't being dismissed out of hand.

[jambutty]

But junetta penalties are already taken in front of a crowd at the end of a match and I don’t recall any major crowd problems. In fact before a match actually starts most crowds are docile with anticipation of what is to come.

Yes I am sure that it would encourage more cheating and diving etc from the team that lost the penalty shoot out in an attempt to win so that the penalties don’t have an effect on the result but that is a different issue, which needs to be addressed.

Maybe a ‘Sin Bin’ like is used in Rugby and Ice Hockey for fouls that warrant a yellow card would make players think twice before tugging at someone’s shirt or diving to gain a free kick or penalty. The fourth official would control the ‘Sin Bin’. Until the notion sank in there would probably be some farcical matches with 7 playing 9 for a while. But once a team starts to lose players for 10 minutes or so and probably going behind because of it coaches and captains would re-think the team’s strategy.

However a yellow card can only be issued if the referee or assistant sees an incident so maybe we should have two more assistants so that all angles are covered. This would make flagging for off side a bit of a nightmare as raising the flag is based on an assistant’s judgement and both assistants might view a possible off side differently. Of course there would be a need for two more match officials and this may not be practical for the lower leagues and non-league football but what are problems for if not to be solved. Start with International matches and the Premier league of each country and take it from there.

I’ve been a football fan for more than 60 years and seen some of the best play, like Stanley Matthews, Raich Carter, Stan Mortensen, Tommy Taylor, Duncan Edwards, Tom Finney, Bert Trautmann to mention just a few and Cyril Briggs. Who? Cyril Briggs Accrington Stanley’s centre half back in the late forties and early fifties but there were no indiscriminate fouling then. There were some tough and hard tackling but none of the modern shirt pulling and badgering the ref waving imaginary cards. When a player went down he did so because he had been knocked over sometimes with a fair shoulder charge. Players accepted the referee’s decision without question. Players didn’t try to pinch 10 yards when taking a throw in or free kick and didn’t argue with the referee about going back 10 yards. They just got on with it.

Whatever happens FIFA and the various football authorities need to bite the bullet and take real action against the cheats before the wonderful game becomes a farce.

[LancYorkYankee]

How bout this for a kinda radical new idea. After the 1st 15 minutes of O.T., teams are either allowed or force to make 2 or 3 new substitutions. That way, the test becomes who's got the strongest "bench!" By the 2nd O.T., the starters are so well spent that this could have a whole new amount of excitement. Also, and even better, it gives guys a chance to play/star that never see the light of day in big matches!

BEA (Brian)