When I read this from the usually excellent John Palmer, I thought it was just vindication of Isaiah Berlin's saying that the great goods cannot live together: Canadians are a great good, football is a great good, but the two together are a horrible mess.
Turns out I was too optimistic:
The Football League board is to consider a proposal to scrap draws and decide matches by penalty shoot-outs.
Apparently, the winner of the shoot-out will get two points and the loser one.
I hope April Fool's Day has come early, because this idea stinks. It would increase teams' incentives to play defensively. Now, a team that puts 10 men behind the ball - as visitors to the Home of Football often do - has, at best, a chance of one point. Under this system, they have a chance of two. So they'll defend even deeper and be even less adventurous.
The result will be less variety and less interesting football.
So, whatever crack-brained imbecile thought of this - and, unsurprisingly, it might be a member of the Stupid Party - shows not just an ignorance of football tradition, but of economics too. Changes in rules change incentives.
Stupid idea. Oh and don't for one moment should anyone think that Canadians were / are in favour of shoot-outs instead of draws in the NHL. The shoot-out was only introduce last season. It was intended to help in boosting the popularity of hockey in the US (stupid plan - isn't going to work).
It is a dumb idea for most sports to ignore the possibility of a draw.
Posted by: Steve | March 15, 2007 at 10:10 AM
They should, then, change the number of points available for winning to 4.
Unfortunately, this doesn't solve the problem of both teams playing defensively at events like the last World Cup, which made for pretty tedious viewing. Draws there could be decided by penalty shootout, but with one free penalty to the team with the most shots on goal over the rest of the match, and another extra penalty for the team with the greatest offensive possession (ie. ball possession in other team's half).
Posted by: sanbikinoraion | March 15, 2007 at 12:52 PM
In some youth tournaments, the team which has gotten the most corners is considered the winner in case of a draw. I think that's a far more sensible approach than what that "crack-brained imbecile" just came up with.
Posted by: TG | March 15, 2007 at 02:52 PM
But, TG, that is how it was done in Victorian times and, as you know, You Can Never Turn The Clock Back.
Posted by: dearieme | March 17, 2007 at 10:08 PM