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Penalty Shootout (football)




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.

Recently, the English Community Shield final has been settled using penalties, following the normal 90 minutes of play, but no extra time. In 2004 , Manchester United beat 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 center 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 (aet), Team A won 5–4 on penalties".


PROCEDURE

The following is a summary of the procedure for kicks from the penalty mark:

  • 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 only defended 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 only kick the ball once. 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.


  • No player is allowed to take a second kick from the penalty mark until all other players on his team 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

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".

The finals of two major FIFA competitions have gone to penalty shootouts. Both took place in the same stadium, the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California , USA .
  • In the (men's) 1994 World Cup , Brazil and Italy ended extra time in a scoreless tie. Brazil went on to win the shootout 3–2.

  • Like the 1994 men's final, the 1999 Women's World Cup final between the USA and China was scoreless after extra time. The US 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.


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. 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.

Then, in May, 2005 , Arsenal beat Manchester United 5-4 in the first ever F.A. Cup final to be decided on penalties.

Also in 2005, a place in the World Cup was directly determined by a penalty shootout for the first time. The 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.


CRITICISMS AND ALTERNATIVES

Penalty shootouts have received criticisms that they do not provide a fair reflection of who the better side was 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. 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.

Golden Goal and Silver Goal methods to encourage a non-tied result before the end of the match have been used previously, however IFAB has discontinued their use as of 2004.

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 have included using elements of game play such as most shots on goal, most Corner Kicks awarded, least Cautions and Send-offs , or having ongoing Extra Time with teams compelled to remove players at progressive intervals. These proposals have not been authorised by IFAB .


AMERICAN EXPERIMENTS

In an attempt to "Americanize" the sport, 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. 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)