Paying the penalty, and a strange exit

There's not much I can really say about the world Cup final that hasn't been said. I'm still not convinced on the issue of using penalty kicks to settle a drawn final, though. Surely there must be a better way to resolve a game as big as the WC final? My mind goes back to what the Sportstar said after the 1994 final which also saw a penalty shoot out "Not the perfect solution, but the best we have". And I tend to agree, in a resigned sort of way. It would certainly be unfair to make them play another game. The toss of a coin, as suggested by one paper, is ridiculous. In the 1950 world cup, I noticed, they pitted the final four times against each other in a round- robin group, meaning instead of semifinals and a final, each team played each other once and the team which finished on the highest number of points at the end, won. As it turned out, the last game between Brazil and Uruguay was effectively a final match as the team which won would finsih on top, and thus get the title. I don't think such a method would go down with the fans too well today, though. Penalties are here to stay.

These days, the penalty shootout has become serious business. Arguably, it's a test of skill as much as nerves although most of us like to believe it's pure luck. Strategies have actually evolved to the point where we see Sven-Goran-Errikson bringing on Jamie Carragher late in the game specifically for the shootout. Likewise in the final, when Frank Ribery was substituted for for poor David Trezeguet. All the talk in the closing moments was about how "France are without their best penalty takers" namely Zidane and Henry. In the quarterfinals, Portugal's Ricardo produced a superhuman effort to block three England penalty kicks and the commentators went on about how he "revels in these situations". Goes to show that the shootout has not become merely an accepted, but a necessary part of strategy. To digress a bit, there was once an ICC experiment to decide abandoned ODI cricket matches on a 'shoot-out' meaning five bowlers on each side try to knock over the stumps with one delivery each, and the winner is the side which is able to hit the stumps more often. Seems an unthinkable, just as the penalty shootout was ages ago, but ten or twenty years down the line who knows?

In the last post I commented about Zidane and an otherwise unmemorable World Cup. After all that, it looks like the Cup will be well remembered after all, though not in a way that would please fans and critics alike. The headbutting issue has been done to death in the papers so I won't get into it. I'd just like to say I think Zidane was destined to go out in an unpredictable manner, yet another way of keeping his fans guessing. He tantalized football fans in general and his followers in particular with that audacious penalty kick. He kept them hopeful with his midfield runs and deft passing. He almost brought them all to his feet with that header. He had them asking "Why, oh why" with his inglorious exit. Like all flawed geniuses, you never knew quite what you would get, nothing would be neat and tidy or according to a perfect script. 'Script' is actually an appropriate word....his role in the final played like a movie. But truth is always stranger than fiction, as we (and Zidane) found out. It wasn't an altogether unhappy ending, he did win the golden ball. But, in a world that increasingly loves to paint in black and white, there was to be no ordinary or straightfoward exit for him. Simply haunting, this final was.