I continue to really enjoy the World Cup so far, even with my beloved Japan losing yesterday. We’re just a few games into the knockout round, and already we’ve seen 2 games go to penalties and 2 end with goals in stoppage time.
Leading into the knockout rounds, it was interesting to see how some teams responded to knowing who they might play next. There was even a game where both teams wanted to lose to avoid a matchup with a top team.
So here’s my proposal to always encourage teams to play to win (or at least not know their potential knockout round opponent in advance): After group play ends, randomly seed the bracket with first-place, second-place, and qualifying third-place teams. That way, even if some weaker teams sneak into higher seeds and stronger teams limp into lower seeds, you don’t know which of them you’ll match up with until the random seeding.
My second proposal (learned from my friend Miles) counters the problem of some teams playing more conservatively against stronger teams in the hopes of getting to a penalty shootout, where anything could happen.
The idea is a bit outlandish, but I love it: After 90 minutes of play, if the score is tied in a knockout game, you go directly to the shootout. However, instead of winning the game, the winner of the shootout earns half a point. So the score might now be 2 to 2.5. You then play another 20 minutes to end the game.
This means you get the excitement of the shootout, but you end the game with actual soccer. The team that is down by 0.5 has a huge incentive to play aggressively, as a single goal will likely win the game, and the team that is up by 0.5 still has good reason to push the ball forward and score again, as they will likely lose if the other team scores a goal. And because of the weird half of a point, there’s no possibility for the game to remain tied after 20 minutes.
What do you think? Could either of these work? Who are you finding yourself rooting for as we get close to the final 16 teams?
I see two problems with the second suggestion. the team up half a point would play as defensively as they can for 20 minutes which they will see as a short time to play bunker. Secondly physically it’s hard for players to wind down from an intensive 90+ minutes into penalties and then wind the body up again fro intensive 20 minutes soccer.
I like the first idea, the only issue is logistics. Stadiums, locations and tickets are decided and sold way ahead of time of the world cup. An uncertain bracket for second round will throw all this logistics into the air which will present a problem to solve.
I agree that they would have a defensive mentality, but much less than if they were up by a full goal.