That There World Cup of Winning Football.

[HomerJay]

One thing I heartily agree with you on is that penalty shootouts should be abolished, and that extra time ought to be a sudden death arrangement. (Perhaps an additional substitution of one or two players should be allowed as well. That would be the humane thing to do.)

This is a throw back to when boxing matches continued until one of them couldn't get up again. look at thelast 10 minutes of this game and even the last 10 o fthe Brazil - Germany game to see what sudden death looks like.

But you need to (a) finish the game on the day and (b) limit the amount of time played.

So penalty shoot outs are a good option, interesting stat on the BBC website that a player shooting to win a WC finals penalty shoot scores 93% of the time whereas a player shooting to stay in the shoot out only scores 39% of the time.

So the pressure more than halves the chances of scoring.

The other option FIFA are supposed to be evaluating is removing players but that again favours the stronger teams, with better subs etc and will be pointless to train for (do you train with 10, then 9 then 8 then 7?) whereas the penalty shoot out is something that you can train for, keepers and players.

[Hermit]

One thing I heartily agree with you on is that penalty shootouts should be abolished, and that extra time ought to be a sudden death arrangement. (Perhaps an additional substitution of one or two players should be allowed as well. That would be the humane thing to do.)

This is a throw back to when boxing matches continued until one of them couldn't get up again. look at thelast 10 minutes of this game and even the last 10 o fthe Brazil - Germany game to see what sudden death looks like.

I remain convinced of KLR's point that abolishing the shootout would change the emphasis on defence. As a consequence extra time would be a less frequent occurrence. Also, did you notice my mention of sudden death at all?

[klr]

...

Dammit, you beat me to that one.

Unfortunately, ex-Pope Benjy XVI is not a soccer fan, so the chances of an inter-pope football squabble are on the low side.

[klr]

One thing I heartily agree with you on is that penalty shootouts should be abolished, and that extra time ought to be a sudden death arrangement. (Perhaps an additional substitution of one or two players should be allowed as well. That would be the humane thing to do.)

This is a throw back to when boxing matches continued until one of them couldn't get up again. look at thelast 10 minutes of this game and even the last 10 o fthe Brazil - Germany game to see what sudden death looks like.

I remain convinced of KLR's point that abolishing the shootout would change the emphasis on defence. As a consequence extra time would be a less frequent occurrence. Also, did you notice my mention of sudden death at all?

Some stats, which I will have to double-check ...

Between 1954 and 1978, there were 44 knock-out matches at the World Cup finals. 6 went to extra time (14%), all were settled in extra time. For most of that period - certainly up until 1970 - I think lots were drawn if teams finished level after extra time.

From 1982 to 2014, there have been 130 knock-out matches, with 2 more to come in these finals. 42 43 (33%) have gone to extra time, and 26 of those to penalties (60% of extra-time matches). It gets slightly worse if you exclude the 3rd/4th place play-off, where extra time is not surprisingly very rare.

It's a similar story in the European Cup (Champions League) final. I'm not sure when penalties were introduced, but it was probably around 1980. Pre-penalty shoot-outs, 4 finals (about 1 in 6) went to extra-time. 3 of those were settled in extra time, the last went to a replay in 1974 after an extra-time exchange of goals. Since the shoot-out was introduced, about 1 in 3 finals (12) have gone to extra-time. Only 2 of those have been settled in extra-time, including this year's final. There were no extra-time goals at all in the other 10 periods of extra time.

It would be worth doing some some further analysis for the World Cup and other major international championships, to see if the goals per game ratio in knock-out games, relative to the same ratio for group games, has changed significantly since the shoot-out was introduced. That's a lot of work. But since I have Google and a spreadsheet ...

[HomerJay]

it's the old problem of how to interpret the stats, there have been lots of defensive and coaching changes that have resulted in better defences.

Teams used to play 2-4-4, so lots of goal opportunities, now they play 4-5-1 or 3-2-4-1 that results is 5 at the back. Plus teams employ much better coaches so even little teams like USA and Costa Rica have well drilled defences.

that's why the ball changes keep getting made to make it harder for keepers.

[klr]

it's the old problem of how to interpret the stats, there have been lots of defensive and coaching changes that have resulted in better defences.

Teams used to play 2-4-4, so lots of goal opportunities, now they play 4-5-1 or 3-2-4-1 that results is 5 at the back. Plus teams employ much better coaches so even little teams like USA and Costa Rica have well drilled defences.

that's why the ball changes keep getting made to make it harder for keepers.

The very first international match - between England and Scotland in 1872 - ended 0-0, despite over half the players being "forwards". But teams had yet to learn to pass the ball around, so maybe it's not surprising it was scoreless.

Some modern teams seem to have forgotten how to pass.

After watching about 2 minutes, I predicted a a supremely boring 0-0 draw, and thence a penalty shoot-out.

I should have gone off and done something else for 2 hours or so, and come back for the shoot out. A terrible, terrible game. Had there been no penalty shoot-out available - say sudden-death extra time instead - you can bet your bottom dollar the two teams would have played from the outset with a very different attitude.

Our tastes of what constitutes a good game obviously differ. I was fascinated by the solidity of defence in both teams, and there were sufficient attempts to get past it by both sides to make it interesting for me. It was just a pity that neither side had enough coordination to succeed. In particular, I thought Messi was definitely not firing on all cylinders. In general neither the Argentinean side nor the Dutch ever managed to mount a cleverly concerted attack. All real dangers were results of happenstance and almost lucky shots.

On the other hand I was not particularly enthralled by Germany's demolition of Brazil. Game over in just under 30 minutes as far as I'm concerned. The remainder was akin to watching a cricket test match in which Australia beats England by an innings and a fuckload of runs. My preference is for close contests.

The scoreless game between the Netherlands and Argentina was definitely more enthralling to me than their 1 - 0 win over Ghana, which consisted of a goalie and ten other defenders not quite succeeding in staving off a lacklustre attack. So we had yet another penalty shootout. To adapt something an internet shopping site might say, "People who enjoy penalty shootouts also like the 20 - 20 "cricket" bash."

One thing I heartily agree with you on is that penalty shootouts should be abolished, and that extra time ought to be a sudden death arrangement. (Perhaps an additional substitution of one or two players should be allowed as well. That would be the humane thing to do.)

I like to watch a good contest between defence and attack. The problem with the second semi-final is that there was far too much emphasis on defence. IMHO, you can only really appreciate a great offence if it's tested by an equally good attack, and vice versa. It should have been blindingly obvious to both managers early on that they were going to have great problems actually scoring. Either team, or both, could have seriously altered their tactics and made a concerted effort to actually score, but they never really did. All great sport is about risk/reward, and the attitude of both teams was that they did not want to risk too much during normal play, but leave it to the penalty shoot-out. I've seen that far too often over the last 30 years or so.

As to the first match: It's not as if Germany were thrashing a team of no-hopers in the group stages, which would indeed have been uninteresting. This was a World Cup semi-final against Brazil, in Brazil. It was something completely out of the ordinary, even if it was not a great Brazil team. It just fell to Germany to provide spectacular proof of that, even if they didn't have to get into top gear.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

I only wish I had watched the match in this pub...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-28237622

[klr]

I only wish I had watched the match in this pub...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-28237622

That's about 5 minutes walk from where I live - a great live music venue BTW.

But I don't drink, so I wouldn't have been able to take advantage.

Meanwhile, the only way things could get any worse for Brazil is if Argentina win tomorrow ...

[klr]

... oh, and Paris St. Germain paid Chelsea 50 million Stg. for David Luiz. Not surprisingly, the deal went through before the World Cup.

[JimC]

Is lynching common in Brazil?

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Is lynching common in Brazil?

Lyn Ching is a far more common name in China, I think.

[Hermit]

Is lynching common in Brazil?

You never know with those Latino hotheads. During the 1994 world championship Andrés Escobar played as a defender for the Colombian team. He scored an own-goal against the USA. Colombia lost the game 1 - 2 and didn't make it to the next round. Having returned to his home country he was shot six times by three men in a car park nine days after the own-goal and died in hospital 45 minutes later.

[SteveB]

Has Germany won yet?

[piscator]

I can't believe how good Argentina looks at the half. More dangerous, and Germany needs a lockpicker to open up their defense.

[Hermit]

I can't believe how good Argentina looks at the half. More dangerous, and Germany needs a lockpicker to open up their defense.

Exactly. Argentina is solid in defence and incredibly quick andsharp in attack. Germany was extremely lucky not to be one goal behind at the 20 minute mark. That shot should have been a gimme.

And Messi almost got one in within two minutes of thesecond half. As Maxwell smart would have said: "Missed it by that much." (Pinches thumb and index finger together.)