I used to hate penalty shootouts. I in fact dreaded the day the FA Cup Final would have to be decided on them - the end of 133 years of tradition. And then on Saturday, not only did I see it happen, but with my own bloody team.

But did I leave the room in disgust, or hide behind the sofa? Nope. I stayed and watched. And I found myself secretly enjoying it. Penalties have become…normal, accepted. Partly because they seem to be happening more often than ever (especially with England…) but perhaps because there is more football on television, so we just see more of them happening. In any case, I am coming round to the idea that penalties are a good thing - at the very least, they allow the goalkeeper to shine for once, rather than the guys who bang them in at the other end.

People say penalties are a lottery, and are an unfair way of ending a match. These are both utter lies. First of all, they’re not a lottery - case in point, the only miss of Saturday’s match was an Englishman facing a German keeper. Coincidence? I think not. Secondly, penalties are not unfair. What was unfair about the FA Cup final was that the score had stayed at 0-0 for 120 minutes; by rights, Man U should have won. But they didn’t. Football is nasty. Football is unfair. Poor Celtic were heading for the title today, but an on-fire 41-year-old keeper and a late wonder goal gave the title to Rangers. Not fair at all. Normal play just isn’t like that.

And I’m not just saying this because we won on Saturday - Arsenal have had a couple of bad losses on penalties in recent years (especially Galatasaray in the UEFA Cup final) , and England have a terrible record in them since forever.

Some say that penalties are an indicator of a nation’s character. The steely and efficient Germans have won all but one of their shootouts, while the temperamental and artistic Dutch, and the enthusiastic but untalented English have only won one each. This argument falls down with the Italians, who despite being ruthless and organised in their play totally bottle it when it comes to shootouts (the only one they have won was, surprise, against the Dutch).

It isn’t a show of national character, it’s a show of preparedness. Stung by their 1976 European Championship loss to the Czechs (Panenka’s winning penalty in that match, incidentally, is an amazingly cheeky chip, I thoroughly recommend watching it), the Germans have been busy practising them ever since; Arsenal’s utter ruthlessness from the spot in recent years is probably the result of two shootout losses in 2000. In England though…we just moan in the pub about the unfairnesss of it all, and all manner of crackpot systems advocated to replace it (team with the most corners wins, anyone?). Instead we should demand that every player should be kept behind for an hour’s penalty practice at the end of every training session, instead of pretending such practice is bad for morale. Come the 2006 World Cup, and England’s inevitable shootout loss (who will it be to this time?) you can bet this will not be the case though.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 23rd, 2005 at 00:16:38 and is filed under General.