The End of the Draw?

Quick question to start things off, what did this years World Cup give you? What memories will you take from it, that will last for many years? Awful refereeing decisions? Big goalkeeping mistakes? Dirty tactics in the Final?

One thing is for sure, it won’t be the wonderful football that was on display because, quite frankly, there was none. A 25 man Technical Study Group came out with a 288 page book report that suggested “nearly all teams now play with a compact defence.” Well congratulations, I could have told you that for free, let alone the absurd amounts that these 25 members most likely earn. The fact of the matter is, is that in International - and some club - football now, the main objective in a match is to not concede. Now I’m not saying this is a bad philosophy, far from it, what I am worried about however is the number of teams who also don’t look to score either. The sort of teams that almost know they are beaten before they enter the field of play, and do all they can to shut the opposition out, with no sense of attacking play whatsoever producing un-entertaining games ending in draws. This cannot be good for the future of the game.

So what does world footballs fearless leader plan to do about all this negativity. “We are considering doing away with draws in the first round (of World Cups) and also ending extra-time play. If there is no winner at the end of 90 minutes of play, we could proceed directly to penalty kicks.” I forget the writer now, but I once read a column in World Soccer magazine that said “Sepp Blatter comes up with 50 new ideas a day, 51 of them are bad.” A fairly accurate description if you ask me. Other possibilities that the world football governing body has mentioned include increasing the size of the goals and reducing both teams players by one every few minutes during extra time.

There is definitely reason for something to change, because this years World Cup really wasn’t that entertaining to watch, likewise with the 2006 tournament, although I did spend a lot of time travelling to and from Germany for the England games, so maybe didn’t catch enough of that tournament. The ideas being proposed however, are not something that I would like to see. If we do away with draws and go straight to penalty shootouts, then these teams who know they will struggle to get anything from a game, will go even more defensive. The fact that a penalty shootout is an absolute lottery will mean teams playing for that outcome all the more. We shall see what they eventually come up with, but if the past is anything to go by, more than likely nothing and we shall continue as we are.

As ever, sources and quotes taken from World Soccer magazine.