Now that England has finally started to get the German penalty monkey of its back Sepp Blatter has announced that he doesn’t care much for shootouts. The FIFA president told the organisation’s congress that football “loses its essence” when matches are decided this way and there needs to be a different way to settle things than the “tragedy” of penalty shootouts. What other alternatives are there though?
Unlimited Overtime
Ice Hockey has used it for some time so why not now for football? Well I’ll tell you why. This is a sure fire way to take away a lot of excitement from the game. If Blatter were annoyed that Chelsea had won the Champions League with their tactics they’d win a lot more with this in place. Although I can’t help but think making the players really earn their money by playing for hours on end would be a sight.
Crossbar Challenge (if you don’t know what we’re on about click here for a best of!)
This is a game championed by the Saturday morning TV show Soccer AM and lays down the gauntlet to players by challenging them to hit the crossbar from the halfway line. Ultimately requires a lot more skill than a penalty shootout and can also be set out in a similar format. Under Blatter’s rules it probably goes down as another of his so-called “tragedies”.
End the game as a draw
There was once a time when you could conceivably have an infinite number of replays to decide a cup-tie so why not a return to that sepia tinged era. While they’re at it there should be a stipulation that they wear some kind of garish kit from bygone days if it heads to a second replay. Got to make it exciting after all.
What Ray says goes
For a couple of seasons now anyone watching televised football will have become familiar with the sight for sore eyes of Ray Winstone giving us the la’est loive odds on behalf of bet365. Now to make matches get closer to their conclusion how about what ever Ray says goes? It would solve Blatter’s conundrum, make it really easy to bet on and, most importantly, keep Ray happy. Wouldn’t want to meet him down a dark alley with a snooker ball in a sock after all would we Sepp!
Management Deathmatch
A cute take on the MTV show where, instead of wax models, a ring is erected in the middle of the pitch should the game end in a draw. The two managers then don a pair of boxing shorts and gloves before fighting until we have a winner. We can’t imagine there will ever be the need for it to go to points and Blatter may well face some kind of backlash from certain sections of the public. From a betting point of view it makes it even more exciting. Who needs penalties!
If any of our readers have a better idea on how Sepp can rid the game of this tragic element then feel free to comment below. So far he has his best man, Franz Beckenbauer, on the job and with these two in charge who knows what could befall the beautiful game.
