Guess who's back! Back again...!
It's taken another death for me to put metaphorical pen to metaphorical paper. Although this one isn't an actual living being, thank goodness; I don't want my blog to become a glorified obituaries column.
This post has been on the cards for some time now to be honest. I once did a 10 things I like about Football, back in the early days of this blog, and I may have even done a 10 things I hate... back then too (ahh the days when I was childless and would post multiple times in a month, occasionally a week, good times)? If I did this thing would have made it.
The last decade or so has seen the game slowly and steadily move away from its purest form, FA cup finals have been moved to the late afternoon to accommodate TV audiences in far flung parts of the World; League championships in major European football nations have become predictable (see Juventus, Bayern, PSG, Olympiakos, Celtic etc) due to the widening financial gap between those at the top and their rivals; We've implemented a system that see's large pauses in top level games with referees, fans and television pundits pouring over endless slow-motion replays and punishes players for being 10 centimetres "offside" in the pursuit of achieving flawless officiating; And we've recently seen 12 of the richest teams in the World lobbying for a closed competition, where they face no jeopardy for a bad run of performances and get given a sh*t ton of money for the privilege, leaving behind the rest of the football pyramid within each of their respective domestic setups. Marvellous!
It feels like barely a few weeks pass before we hear fans and pundits clutching their pearls and pointing to the latest outrage. The death of Football. "The Game's gone!" Has become such a familiar cry. So much so that it's become a football cliché, and subsequently a topic of conversation on one of my favourite contemporary football podcasts at the moment; the aptly named, Football Cliché's Podcast.
There was recently (well a few weeks or even months ago) an episode dedicated to this trope in, which discussion focused on the many factors that cause those that love the game to utter the above words. And an attempt was made to pinpoint the exact moment at which the game Went. And that got me thinking.
Many people will point to the early 1990's and seismic events such as the formation of the Premier League or Champions League, or the introduction of the concept of football being broadcast via Satellite Pay TV. Or later on when clubs started spending tens of millions of pounds, or Euros depending on where you live, on single signings. Or that time when Man United dropped out of the FA Cup only to get their a**es handed to them by Romario and Edmundo (with Barry Davies on the comms [Insert cool/sunglasses emoji]).
For me though, football died, or went. Long before that. A couple of decades before. When something was introduced that completely changed what we attempting to get out of the beautiful game. The first of the nails in the game's coffin was in my eyes, this introduction of the Penalty Shoot-out.
Now hear me out. I understand the logistical argument that can be made to counter the point I'm about to make. But in response to that I question how we managed to cope without penalties in the 90 to 100 years before they became a part of the game (barring the 1968 European Championship semi final). I also question why it has to be so expensive for fans of the two teams who have to do it all again in a week/a fortnight/a few days time. Surely there are some other issues that should have been addressed.
So here's my argument.
Picture this: It's the 1860's. Rules have been drawn up to codify this exciting new game all the cool kids are playing called Association Football (latterly abbreviated to "Soccer"). Teams start to form in pockets of the UK and begin to play matches of the new game against each other and it's a roaring success. But how do you make things interesting? How do you systematically determine who the best, and worst, teams who play Association Football are?
Well back then those guys come up with another idea. A competition. The Football Association Challenge Cup. The premise is simple. A set of teams enter and are drawn randomly against each other. The winner of each tie/match advances to play again and the loser is eliminated. Culminating in the best two teams (or best two that have avoided being drawn against each other) playing in a grand showdown at the end. Like reaching the final boss on a Computer Game 115+ years later.
The tournament is a success, each game draws attention from large crowds all wanting to catch a glimpse of the spectacle that is playing out. But there's one issue. Are the Winners or "Cup Finalists" actually the best teams to have entered that year's competition? Or are they just the most fortuitous? Have the best two teams already been drawn to play each other at an earlier stage? Or did the best team have an off day or suffer the misfortune of injuries to players at key times in the competition? The only way to settle this is by staging a "Round Robin" style tournament where all the teams play each other, home and away, with points being awarded to the victor in each match...
You see where I'm going with this right? That blossoms into tournaments in other countries, then between nations, then between the champions within each nation etc etc.
But in each case the brief is clear. The spectacle is well defined. We are witnessing a game of Association Football between two teams. Much like a game of Poker where money is laid at stake, the jeopardy makes that contest even more interesting. As does often the preconceived notion of how the contest may play out, which often comes from memories of previous competitive encounters between the two sides. But we are here to watch a game of Association Football, just like we were in 1872, and 1888, and 1930.
Or are we?
This is where the "Penaltification" begins. In knockout matches, i.e. those where the loser stands to be eliminated from the competition, there are instances where the two competitors are so evenly matched that after 90 minutes of Association Football both teams have scored the same number of games. The solution at first was simple. Extend the match by 30 minutes. Surely a winner will be determined as fatigue set in? The spectators would also love to see an extra half an hour of drama. But what if a winner still can't be determined after a 120 minutes?
The answer is simple to me, and was to the rule makers for some 80 or 90 years. Play again. We want to see the contest between the two sides, especially two so evenly matched, and we want to determine a victor. It's a no brainer for me. I love football, so let me watch some more.
Then something changed. Somewhere along the lines the desire to award a victor overcame that to watch the contest. We, or the rule makers, decided to take one aspect of the game a situation usually used to penalise infringements close to One's own goal. A situation that statistically only occurs once in every five games. And decided that the outcome of the contest would be decided purely based on each team's ability to convert an uncontested shot 12 yards from goal.
Now I understand the premise. I understand why this would appear to some as a perfect way to settle a deadlocked contest. It's a test of One's nerve and provides additional drama/jeopardy for all involved. But is it Association Football though? Not in my eyes. It's a very small aspect of the game. Why not ask the teams to take turns at taking or defending against other Set Pieces? Like direct free kicks just outside the box or corners? Why not have one on one situations, like those trialled in the early days of MLS, where a player is passed through on goal and has to beat the keeper?
I also understand that there was or is a desire to settle the contest. As mentioned earlier, I get that there are logistical and financial challenges behind replaying the contest a few days or weeks later. But are there? We coped before, at a time when the game had less investment, when domestic and international travel was more arduous and time consuming, and when squads were much smaller, to the point that the concept of a "squad" wasn't even a thing.
So we now have a situation where, as mentioned earlier, the desire to settle the contest between the two teams and move on to the next phase actually outweighs that of the audience's will to watch a game of Associated Football between two contestants. Now if you think I'm being dramatic in saying that, ask yourself why in some competitions we no longer even have the extended 30 minute period to determine a winner?
We've gotten to a place now where we just want to get the football match over with; and subsequently we value finishing 4th in the Premier League (or in some cases any place from 17th upwards) over winning these individual contests and potentially being crowned the overall Victor in the Football Association Challenge Cup. Where fans and pundits seem to get more excited and expend more energy talking about potential signings, even when we know that signing the best players in the World at that time guarantees nothing, see Eden Hazard at Real Madrid and Di Maria at Man United as two examples.
We'd rather the suits hand the cheque out so we can speculate about who our team may be able to sign. We'd rather muse over potential takeovers by Billionaires with no previous connection to the club they are looking to purchase or the surrounding communities, KNOWING how bad that has panned out for some clubs. We'd rather our teams qualified for European competitions that we have next to no chance of actually competing in, or making it to the "Promised Land" of the Premier League, even if it is for a 12 month stint where a place in the bottom 3 is almost a nailed on certainty.
The next stage is for us to scrap the match and just play the Penalty Shoot-out, or even scrap the Shoot-out determine the winner (and hand out the resulting multi-million pound novelty cheques) based on transfer activity or social media presence. Or maybe "History" that seems to be something that everyone is hung up on? Why watch an actual game of Association Football when you can just revel your team's achievements in them 40 years ago?
I just want to watch a football match, preferably at 3pm on a Saturday!! Bring back FA Cup Replays! Actually I JUST WANT TO WATCH A MATCH OF ASSOCIATION FOOTBALL like they did in 1872!
Anyone got the highlights of The Wanderers vs The Old Etonians?
PS I'd also like to point out that it is very rare that two teams will draw multiple ties against each-other, except for that time Arsenal played Leeds in the FA Cup back when I was a kid and they ended up like a round behind everyone else! AND I'd like to point out that we'd never had a 0-0 FA Cup Final until they scrapped the replay in favour of Penalties; then we had that awful Arsenal (Invincibles on the decline) v Man United Final.
