FIFA PRESIDENT SEPP BLATTER has turned to a German to come up with an alternative to the penalty shoo-out for deciding tied matches.
The shoot-out has long been a favoured past-time for German footballers as they demonstrated a stunning proficiency in finding the net during high pressure spot kicks.
However Bayern Munich came up short against Chelsea in this season’s Champions League Final and Blatter now believes the time has come to make a change.
Blatter was speaking at the FIFA Congress in Budapest when he hit upon the idea of eliminating the shoot-out. He said:
Football can be a tragedy when you go to penalty kicks. Football should not go to one to one, when it goes to penalty kicks football loses its essence.
“Perhaps Franz Beckenbauer with his football 2014 group can show us a solution perhaps not today but in the future.”
Beckenbauer is head of the Football Task Force 2014, which has been charged with recommending rule changes to the game.
Mixed bag
Irish football supporters will long remember the shoot-out at Italia ’90 when Packie Bonner made a crucial save and David O’Leary netted the deciding penalty.
Ireland did not fare so well the next time out, in 2002, when they were eliminated at the quarter-final stage of the World Cup when the Spanish team kept their nerve better from 12 yards out.
FIFA, who will make a decision on goal-line technology on 5 July, has already trialled the ‘golden goal’ (sudden death winner) in extra time and a more convoluted ‘silver goal’ that gave the trailing team until the end of a half to find an equaliser.
Major League Soccer in America briefly went with a 10-second countdown with a player 40 yards from goal and one-on-one with the goalkeeper.
What alternatives can you think of to decide a match level after extra time?
Oh jaysus I wonder what himself and Kevin Nolan will get up to now they’re back together….
Good luck to him. Very popular at anfield, everyone wanted him to succeed. My only fear for him is London itself. Doubt the location will be good for his social life, or maybe too good
Ah, I’d of held on to him.
Super signing for the hammers, I think Rodgers and Tika-taka have made a bad call here
As a pool fan i think this is very short sighted of the manager. Ok he hasn’t done it but to get rid of him without seeing if he could fit could be a mistake. Its not like we are made of money and there is a mass of players wanting to play at a struggling club
He obviously has Sturridge and Dempsey in the bag. I’m happy. We will have intelligence and guile back at Anfield. Brendan starting at he means to go on.