Question for soccer savvy people, isn't there a better system than penalty shootout to settle ties?
There have been various trials of other methods before in other tournaments such as the European Championships. The
Golden Goal, where in extra time the first team to score is the winner. If after 30 minutes nobody has scored then it's penalties. The Silver Goal is where if one team scores, they still play to the end of that half of extra time (extra time consists of two 15 minute halfs) to give the other team a chance to come back. If one team is ahead by the end of that half then they've won.
I personally think the Golden Goal is the best way but it wasn't successful in deciding games. Both teams just end up being even more defensive than usual in extra time for fear of giving the other team a chance to score.
Another suggestion is to remove one player from each team every five minutes, thus making the game more open.
One could argue that the prospect of penalties actually increases the chances of penalties taking place. Before 1978, there were
77 knock-out matches from 1930 to 1974,
73 were decided within 120 minutes, the remaining
4 matches, which happened in 1934 and 1938, were decided by replays. There were no knock-out matches in 1950, and all
42 knock-out matches from 1954 to 1974 were decided within 120 minutes, so no replays were needed.
Penalties were introduced as a tie-breaker in the 1978 World Cup but they weren't needed until 1982. The first time a World Cup Final was won by penalties was in 1994.
