It’s a Success--Except the Finish : Soccer: After Brazil’s victory on penalty kicks, method to break tie in final is questioned.
The 15th World Cup was pronounced closed--and successful--by organizing officials Monday, amid calls for changing the system for resolving tie games, such as Sunday’s championship match between Brazil and Italy. For the first time in World Cup history, the champion was determined by penalty kicks.
FIFA, the sport’s international governing body, acknowledged that it, too, had found the game unsatisfying.
“We were not happy yesterday, and certainly the teams weren’t that the game had to go to penalty kicks,” FIFA General Secretary Joseph Blatter said.
“We have to have a winner at the end of the competition. We can’t repeat the final, otherwise it’s not a final. So far, we have not a better solution. We can’t decide a game with some other artifice and without a goal. For the time being, I can offer you nothing better. For drama, for the television, it was absolutely a highlight. But, naturally, it was not what we, in football, were expecting from this championship.
“Everyone was expecting that two brilliant teams would play brilliantly, and they did, in overtime and penalty kicks. We cannot inform the tactical selections of the coaches. Because no one wants to lose the final, it was defensive from the beginning. There is no loser in penalty kicks. They say there is only a lucky winner.”
Blatter said that in the 1998 World Cup in France, FIFA will institute the system it uses for its youth games. If the game is tied after 90 minutes of regulation play, two 15-minute overtime periods are used, the difference being the overtime is sudden death--first goal wins. If the score is still tied at the end of overtime, penalty kicks are used.
Blatter was asked why it was not possible simply to continue playing until one team scores, as is done in some other sports. He citied the “culture” of the game and the physical stress on the players.
In the event of continuous play, Blatter said, “We could have a death on the field in the (hot) conditions we had yesterday.”
One solution offered was to allow more substitutions to replace injured or tired players. Current rules allow only the substitution of two field players and one goalkeeper. Blatter said the substitution rule was unlikely to be changed but that options were being studied.
Clearly, FIFA is struggling with the issue of penalty kicks and the unsatisfactory results they produce. The issue came to the forefront again after Brazil won on penalty kicks, 3-2--the score officially was 0-0. At a news conference Monday, there was a chorus of international criticism about the method for determining the winner.
Otherwise, Blatter had praise for the organization of the World Cup, which produced, among other things, the highest attendance and most goals. FIFA’s rule changes aimed at encouraging offensive play appeared to be successful, at least statistically.
In the 1990 World Cup in Italy, for instance, five games ended in 0-0 ties as opposed to three this time. In Italy, four winners were determined by penalty kicks, three this time. Total tickets sold in Italy were 2.5 million, compared to 3.5 million this time, with an average attendance of 70,700. There were 163 yellow card cautions in Italy, 227 this time; 16 red cards in Italy, 15 this time.
Alan Rothenberg, World Cup chairman, declared the organizing effort a success, noting few security problems and higher television ratings than had been expected. Rothenberg called the monthlong event a “love-in” and said the World Cup had served to unite the nation in a unique way.
