My Christmas List for the Sporting World - Part 1

So, I, along with my partner, have been failing in the way of regular posts to this blog. I've been trying to get back into a posting groove, but hitting a writer's block in terms of material to talk about. So, it occurred to me today that, in the spirit of the season, I could start a list of things I'd like to ask Santa for, in terms of changes in the world of sports. This will be a series, and I have no clue how long it might last. If we get past Christmas, I'll roll with it and change to "Proposed New Year's Resolutions for the Sporting World", or something like that. So, basically, I've come up with an excuse to tell you all about the things I don't like in sports, and what I would do to change them. Some will broad, well-known, sweeping, and meaningful, whereas others will just be personal pet peeves. And I hope to at least keep somewhat original (ie, don't expect to see my wish for a major college football playoff)

Jeff, feel free to chime in with your own additions, I think this could be fun.

Okay, so without further adieu, here is the first item on my sporting Christmas list.

I wish for: A new way to end tied soccer games

Like I said, these aren't all going to be something that most people care about, and given the relative lack of popularity of soccer in this country, I guess I'm proving my point right from the get go.

But I do enjoy soccer, and the penalty shootout used to decide soccer games in playoff scenarios is probably one of my biggest pet peeves in all of sports. I'll be honest, my original frustration with the practice came because for years, anytime my alma mater, Messiah College, went to a penalty shootout, they lost, and shootouts almost invariably came after games where the Falcons were clearly dominating, and would have been the ones to score given enough time. However, the Messiah boys just used a shootout to win their 6th national title (with one of the coolest stories I've ever encountered, check out my personal blog for more info if you haven't heard about it), so I'm past all that, and I stand by my belief that penalty shootouts are, without question, the dumbest tie-breaker used in major sports today.

Let me summarize for those not totally in the know on this issue. If, in a playoff scenario, a soccer game is tied after regulation and the requisite overtimes (2 10 minute periods in college, 2 15s in the international/pro game), we stop playing actual soccer, and to determine a winner, each team, in alternating fashion, has 5 players take penalty shots against the opposing goalie. In a penalty shot, the shooter is stationed 12 yards from the goal, and the keeper is not allowed to move off his line until the shooter strikes the ball. At the highest levels of soccer, penalty shots are not converted for only 1 of 2 reasons: the goalie makes an incredibly lucky guess on where the shooter is going, or the shooter makes an incredibly poor shot. (Okay, there's a 3rd reason, and that's if the keeper cheats forward off his line and doesn't get called for it...)

For comparison's sake, this is roughly equivalent to ending a tied baseball game with a home run derby (which, by the way, is how they SHOULD end a tied All-Star game). You're taking an beautiful game of skill, precision, endurance, and teamwork, and deciding it with a 1 on 1 type showdown that might as well be a glorified coin flip. Just off the top of my head, I know that this is how the last 2 NCAA D-III men's championships were decided, and also how the '94 and '06 World Cup, and I also believe the 2008 European championships as well. And that's ignoring the many other games in these and other tournaments that were decided in such fashion prior to the title games.

Soccer haters who are at least quasi-informed about the game love to use shootouts as one of their favorite points of attack, and I hate that I can't even begin to defend the sport on this point. It's as lame as it gets. I appreciate that, at least in the pro/international ranks where there are limited subs, you just can't keep playing and playing, because eventually no one will be able to move, but there's got to be other options.

I'll leave it to Santa (and the soccer powers that be) to come up with the actual solution, but here are a few suggestions of mine:
#1. Just keep playing. This is obviously the simplest. In the college world, there's really no reason to not keep playing, because substitution can occur very liberally. I understand the objections in the pro/international setting, but they can be addressed. Allow teams to field a new lineup at the beginning of OT, and reset the substitutions.

#2. Play OT with fewer players on the field. Field hockey goes to 7 on 7 for OTs, and I believe that the NHL now goes to 5 v. 5 for regular season OT. The principle here is that you open up the game and increase the number of scoring opportunities, thus limiting increasing the possibility of the tie being broken. This would suffer the same objections as "keep playing" in the pro and international world, objections which could be met with the same modifictations.

#3. Run some sort of alternating 5 on 3 (or similarly configured setup) contest, in lieu of a shootout. I haven't thought this one all the way out yet, in terms of the rules, timing, etc. But at least this would preserve some team aspects and end the game playing something that actually resembles soccer.

#4. Go to a judge's decision at the end of overtimes. I hate this for a number of reasons, but assuming it could be implemented fairly, giving the win to the team judged to have had the better of play would still be better than a shootout.