Soundoff: Would You Eliminate World Cup Draws?

August 16th, 2010 | by: chris |

Sepp-Blatter-001 Though the World Cup is no stranger to structural changes – 18 World Cups, 18 World Cup rulebooks, it seems – the announcement that FIFA may eliminate draws for the World Cup is still a thumping headline for an organization which has balked at some much desired rule changes recently.

FIFA president Sepp Blatter says consideration is being given to scrapping the draw at the World Cup by bringing in a penalty shootout after 90 minutes or using the golden goal in extra time.

Blatter said Saturday on Germany’s Focus weekly that the changes could make the tournament more interesting, claiming teams “above all do not want to lose — that makes for a boring game.”

The immediate thought of more penalty shootouts forces a cringe, since it’s so often a cruel roll of the dice to determine the victor, and golden goal isn’t far behind after witnessing a World Cup with so many suspect goal decisions on almost a daily basis. (Priorities, Sepp.)

But it would certainly make the game more exciting, less cautious and, to a point, reward the more adventurous teams, though you’d still get a number of teams hoping for the fluke goal and/or penalties and the balance of power would shift away from the Cinderella even further.

So what’s your say? Would this be a good or bad move for the future of football’s grand occasion?

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http://www.facebook.com/people/Isabel-Ghose/528855744 Isabel Ghose

It would be stupid and it would just ruin the drama of penalty kicks. Also draws are not always boring, you can end up having an exciting draw like Slovenia V USA. Another stupid thing to come out of Blatters mouth.
Hana

I disagree as well. I think everyone would want the winner of a match to generally have been the stronger opponent over the course of the match – when ninety minutes fails to determine that, extra time is a pretty fair way to try and let the game come to a “natural” conclusion.

Of course, matches need to eventually end, which is why penalties are unfortunately necessary. But I think that penalties should continue to be used as a last resort of sorts, when a natural conclusion to the match has been failed to be reached after two hours.
strikerga

It would be better not to eliminate draws. Penalties should be only for the knockout rounds. I would prefer that the world cup expand the group play instead, so that draws are less meaningful and lessen the liklihood that a team would enter the knockout stages through one of the tiebreakers if points are equal – goal differential or (worse) # of goals scored.

Imagine a field of 40 teams with 8 groups of 5, instead of 32 with 8 groups of 4. One more game in group play – that would be a better solution. Perhaps to a different problem but a better solution. It would also make it almost impossible that a team would advance without a winning record.
http://www.mcalcio.com Marco P.

Blatter is insane. Period. He's also contradicting himself.

2006:
hxxp://www.worldcupblog.org/general-banter/blatter-wants-to-scrap-penalties-for-world-cup-finals.html
1_Luka

How would it make it more exciting? Red Star Belgrade won the European Cup in 1991 by playing defensive (read: boring) football in the final (match was drawn 0-0, Red Star won 5-3 on penalties) because they knew full-well that they had a greater chance of winning on penalties than in normal time. Matches suck sometimes simply because they suck. That's football.
LaMar

What about eliminating draws in the opening match of each group fixture? So England v. USA for example, would've had to go to extra time after the 90 minutes. It seems that the minnows that attempt to play negative to grab a point tend to do so in the first group game. So if you eliminate opening match draws, you can reward positive adventurous soccer to start the WC and still acknowledge that sometimes neither team deserves the 3 points…
LaMar

What about eliminating draws in the opening match of each group fixture? So England v. USA for example, would've had to go to extra time after the 90 minutes. It seems that the minnows that attempt to play negative to grab a point tend to do so in the first group game. So if you eliminate opening match draws, you can reward positive adventurous soccer to start the WC and still acknowledge that sometimes neither team deserves the 3 points…
carldub

What about eliminating Blather (sic)?
http://www.facebook.com/people/Lorenzo-van-Wijngaarden/1351508124 Lorenzo van Wijngaarden

I agree the draws are making for a very boring play, But I disagree with the “let's take penalty's” statement.
Luis van Gaal has it right in my opinion to give the most fair and exiting football, just imagine 6 versus 6 of both teams best player.:
“During extra time, each team should take off a player every five minutes. So after 95 minutes its ten versus ten and 100 minutes after nine versus nine. From the 115th minute, a six versus six situation. If there is still no winner after 120 minutes,the decision then comes by the so-called golden goal. Thus, the likelihood that the best club will win.”