I think penalty shootouts are a fair way of deciding the winner in the FIFA Worldcup knockout stage.
However, the shootout should be done before kick-off. Do the shootout the same way as right now, one hour before the game starts.
That change would bring about several consequences.
For one, a player who has failed to score gets a chance in the game to compensate his failure.
More importantly, in this setup, one of the teams is behind by at least half a goal all the time. That team will need to attack aggressively, leading to more attractive games.
Posted by Karl-Friedrich Lenz at July 9, 2006 04:41 PM