May 21 2008
Man U defeats Chelsea to capture Champions League - video of the shootout
I’m not a huge soccer fan but I decided to watch this game today. I enjoyed the entire first half before heading into the office. El Doctor was kind enough to keep me updated during the day via AIM.
He was so excited about the shootout that I decided to look for it as soon as I came home, and here it is:
5 Responses to “Man U defeats Chelsea to capture Champions League - video of the shootout”
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And they say fans hate shootouts… seriously, I love these things. Everyone loves these things.* You can’t just have the players running around overtime after overtime. Yeah, hockey players do it, but they have the advantage of a) line changes and b) gliding on damn skates.
It would be GREAT if big cup tourneys had replays like they had in the old days (eg., the FA Cup). Score all level? Play another game next week. Some days, teams were just meant to draw. So play another day. Old English farts love to tell young’uns about Chelsea and Arsenal going to 5 replays and what not. Naturally, money fucked this over. Too much bookkeeping with printing extra tickets, making sure the venue had a slot for next year, managing security (and paying them extra). All that shit.
*OK, maybe the players don’t love it so much. It’s a legitimate beef; sure they go into the Final knowing penalties might happen, so what’s that, an extra 1/4 day practicing from the spot? It’s simply not enough. That’s why I have a proposal that will increase the amount of practice professional soccer players spend on PKs and not be too intrusive to the sanctity of the game. And, it provides the fans with a lovable PK shootout every so often.
What’s this plan? It’s not have a PK with every game that ends in a draw, as stated above, some days the teams just deserve a draw. But there’s one draw that nobody deserves, the 0 - 0. At least, not the fans who paid money to sit in a seat and be thoroughly bored. So end the 0 - 0 with PKs. And the winning team gets the one point for the draw, and the loser gets nothing. Blammo! Fans never have to sit through 0 - 0 without some excitement coming, players get a substantial but not intrusive amount of practice with their PKs. I like it.
BTW, one of the owners of the company I work for use to play some intramural type soccer back on the continent. When he was a teen, he played on the same ground that tonight’s Final was held on in Moscow. Only back then, it was a synthetic surface. As soon as he heard that it was a recently installed grass, and it was headed for penalties, he said, “Someone’s gonna slip on that grass and mess up their PK.” And he was right.
Poor Terry.
One other thing. U S A! U S A!! we might not win championships, but we can own one!!
I’m torn on the PK. It is fuckin exciting to watch but at the end it leaves you with a very ‘eh’ feeling. Why not play the 30 mins of ET as is, if it remains tied you then move on to GG format? Players would be so tired that a goal would come and the intensity would be analogous to NHL OT which, for my money, is about as exciting a time in sports.
As to the 0-0 PK idea its interesting but I think our friends across the pond would see it as too “American”.
Also, can we all agree that the worst way to decide a game, perhaps in the history of organized sports, was the early MLS 1v1 shootout shit? I remember watching it and being utterly disgusted.
El Doctor, I am shocked that you would take my Golden Goal idea which I openly presented to you yesterday and claim it as your own. Please give credit where credit is due. Good day sir!
I certainly was not trying to steal your idea. You said you thought the ET should be GG and I do not. I was saying GG should only be used after the 30 mins of ET and that only as an alternative to PK’s. To be honest I don’t know if that would be better. The more I’ve thought about it I see that games could go on forever and you start to risk the health of your players which no one wants.
How come it’s been 3 weeks since we get some love on this site? You know the NBA Finals have been going on now for a couple weeks right? Do you like basketball or just sports that have low total scores like baseball and soccer?