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Opinion : Should football matches be decided on penalties?

| July 8, 2016

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Hasn’t the Euro 2016 football tournament been exciting?

Over the past few weeks yours truly has spent most of my spare time at my neighbours house dressed in my England shirt watching as many football matches as possible on their television.

Naturally it was disappointing that England exited so early in the competition but at least they managed to get out of the group stage so the defeat was not as embarrassing as perhaps it could have been.

At least we were beaten decisively and not forced to endure the spectre of a penalty shoot-out.

I often wonder why important football games are decided on penalties. Five, or more, spot kicks are a most unsuitable way to decide which team goes through if scores remain level when time is up.

Extra time is acceptable in my opinion, but surely if there is still deadlock after thirty extra minutes surely a better way needs to be found to determine which team progresses to the next stage of the competition.

Why can’t the team that played best be the one to go through to the next round?

I know what you are about to say, how can you determine which team played the best?

Well, surely a formula could be created to calculate a teams ‘overall match performance score’ such as the following :

Overall match performance score = Percentage possession + (Number of passes / 5) + (Attempts on target * 10) – (Number of fouls committed * 3) – (Number of yellow cards * 5) – (Number of red cards * 10)

If the match stats for each team were to be plugged into the above formula, or similar, then the resulting figure would give an overall figure relative to how well the team played in the match based on the metrics that comprise the formula.

Of course the result could be updated through the match showing which team was ahead as the match progressed.

Maybe if the teams knew how they were performing in real time it would spur them on to perform better and increase their ‘overall match performance score’ should it be a tie at the end of extra time.

By bringing in things like the number of fouls and red cards it would also encourage players to adhere to the rules of the game making for free flowing football and a more enjoyable match for the spectators.

Anyway my idea has probably been though of before and dismissed for one reason or another but I do feel that anything, including tossing a coin, would be better than deciding a match on penalties.

Who knows maybe the FA will read this blog and be so impressed they appoint my good self as their next chairman or perhaps even the England manager?

One thing is for sure, the past few weeks of football have been very entertaining and your humble servant will be most disappointed when the Euro 2016 tournament ends.

What do you think?

*My blogs are published every Tuesday and Friday evening around 8.00pm here on the WycombeToday.com website.

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