Many storylines sprung up at the recently concluded FIFA World Cup, but two of the most interesting ones revolve around the Japanese team.
There’s the positive stories. After each game, their fans cleaned up the stands before leaving the stadium, the team cleaned up the locker room after their final game and left a thank you note in Russian, and they even archrivals seemed to be cheering them on.
Then, there’s the negative takeaway for Japan from this tournament: advancing to the Round of 16 through a tiebreaker for yellow cards. After their final match, they were deadlocked with Senegal. Both teams had four points, both teams had the same amount of goals scored and goals allowed. Japan had four yellow cards and Senegal had six, and that’s what broke the stalemate in the eyes of FIFA.
This “fair play” tiebreaker rule is new to this tournament and hopefully it will be gone forever after this tournament. While there are only seven situations where a referee can give a yellow card*, even in the best of situations there is a level of subjectivity toward giving out those cards.
If the BCS taught us nothing, it’s that sporting events should be determined by athletes’ actions, not opinions or abstract concepts. Even in sports where there are judges, they’re limited to a strict set of guidelines there based upon what the athlete does, not upon their opinions.
The Highlander does not approve.
For those of you not familiar with cinema of the 1980s, in a nutshell, the Highlander was a movie about a bunch of immortal guys killing each other with swords, because, as the characters of the movie frequently said, “there can be only one.”
Whenever there is any type of sports tournament, this Highlander rule is essential to proper denouement. Outside of some made for movies emotional moment, anything ending in a draw lends a feeling of pointlessness to everyone who witnessed it.
If that draw comes during a regular season, then so be it, there still might be some more games to resolve things, but in a playoff situation? The Highlander does not approve.
The Highlander did not deal with draws. The Highlander did not deal with subjective formulas determined by some random third party. The Highlander must be appeased one way or another. There can be only one.
So, I wanted to share some ideas for future World Cups that will avoid future Japan/Senegal situations building off other current soccer tiebreaker methods, keeping the Highlander (and sports fans) happy.
Option 1: Final game of the group stage ends in a penalty kick shootout if needed
Under the current FIFA Laws of the Game, penalty kick shootouts occur in circumstances “where a winner must be decided” if two regulation halves and extra time cannot decide a winner.
Although some traditionalists dislike shootouts, the Highlander likes them just fine.
Since all games within a group at the end of a group stage, just like all games in England on the final day of the league season, begin at the same time, if one game ends a little earlier, the teams can just wait on the field to see if they’ll head to dueling penalty kick shootouts.
And if the tied teams both win their penalty shootouts, then the tiebreaker could go to whoever scored more goals during the shootout or goal difference or whatever.
If that doesn’t work, they can just keep the shootout going. Which leads me to the next option…
Option 2: Just keep going until there’s a winner.
The World Cup has had limited extra time for decades and most of the time, that’s fine. But if somebody needs to win and penalties don’t cut it, then let the games continue until the deadlock is broken. That’s certainly better than yellow cards.
Option 3: A tie-breaker game between the two deadlocked teams
If there is another Japan/Senegal situation, why not just have those future teams face off against each other in a “loser goes home” match a day or two after the final day of the group stage? Works for Major League Baseball.
Option 4: Something else. Anything else.
There are countless other possibilities, I could go on and on, but I think you get the drift here. This certainly wasn’t a perfect tournament, but it was a decent one. However, it could have been a lot better if not for this little stupid nit-picky thing that didn’t need to be there.
*- Entering the field without the referee’s permission, leaving the field without the referee’s permission, failing to respect the distance on a restart, delaying a restart, dissent, unsporting behavior, persistent infringement.