Should we use penalty kicks to finish World Cup soccer championships?

First things first.  Congratulations to the Women’s World Cup soccer team from Japan.  One of the most amazing and emotional victories for a country that has been pummeled by a tsunami and dealing with the tragedy of the nuclear power plant meltdown.  The World Cup team won that championship, and they deserved it.  おめでとう、あなたはチャンピオンです。 Just as much as the United States deserved their Women’s World Cup championship back in 1999, when the underdog Americans defeated China in the final game.

And both teams received their win based on a tie-breaking penalty kick format.

I understand that sporting events can end in a tie.  I’ve seen it before.  I’ve seen championship basketball games that have played one – maybe two – sometimes three overtime periods to determine a game.  I’ve seen Stanley Cup playoff games that have taken seven overtime periods to complete.  It happens.

At the same time, however, I’ve seen games end in “sudden death” – one goal, one touchdown, one home run.  And I’ve seen it in football, where a team gets the ball in overtime, and then moves down to at least the 20 yard line and then kicks in a chip-shot for a field goal, wins the game, and the other team never gets a chance to touch the ball in the overtime period.

Soccer takes a bad rap for having their championship games end in such a way.  I’ve heard people beef about it, “Oh, what if the Super Bowl ended on a field goal kicking contest?” or “Could you imagine if the NBA championship ended with a game of HORSE?”

But for soccer, what can you do?  Play an extra overtime period with sudden death?  Play a 30-minute “mini-game” after maybe a 15-minute rest period?  Let’s face it.  There’s no simple way to break a game where 1-1 ties are more common than 1-0 wins.

And I recall at least twice in American soccer history where a team lost a championship game on penalty kicks.

And one of those involved an Albany-based soccer team.

Let me introduce you to the Albany Capitals.  They played at Bleecker Stadium in the old American Soccer League (later the American Professional Soccer League).  I’ve blogged about them before, but suffice it to say that they played from 1986 to 1991 and had several teammates, both local (Jeff Guinn, F.J. Zwicklbauer, Lee Tschantret) and international (Paul Mariner, Jimmy McGeough, Mike Masters, Scoop Stanisic).  In September 1991 the Capitals played against the San Francisco Bay Blackhawks for the APSL championship.  It would be a best-of-three series, and since the APSL was the only Division 1 soccer league in America, the Capitals were playing for the national title.

Like the US Women’s team before them, the Capitals came from the depths of adversity to reach the finals – including beating the top team in the APSL, the Maryland Bays (and their monster goal scorer, Jean Harbour) in the semi-finals – despite picking up several yellow and red cards to end up a man down for the rest of the semi-finals, the Capitals won and advanced to face the Blackhawks for the championship.

Albany won the first game, 3-1 in front of 5,000 people at Bleecker Stadium.  San Francisco Bay won the second game in California 2-0, they played a mini-game after that – which the Caps and Hawks tied at 1-1 apiece – and then the Blackhawks won the championship on penalty kicks.  The damn San Francisco Bay Blackhawks robbed my Albany Capitals – and the City of Albany, as well – of a national soccer championship.  Damn you, San Francisco Bay!  And on penalty kicks to determine a championship, no less!!!

I don’t have footage of that championship, but I do have footage of another national soccer championship decided on penalty kicks.

In 1981, the New York Cosmos were poised to win another North American Soccer League championship.  Their opponents that year were the Chicago Sting.  The two teams played to a scoreless tie, and then used penalty kicks to determine the winner, which at that time was the Sting.

Now penalty kicks in the NASL were different than the ones we saw in the World Cup.  Rather than put the ball on a dot and have the kicker make one kick, while the goaltender tries to guess left or right, up or down, the NASL employed a “shootout” method.  The kicker would dribble the ball from 35 yards away, while the goaltender was allowed to approach the ball – essentially to minimize the angle of attack.  Here’s a YouTube clip of the matchup, and take notice – my favorite NASL player at the time, the Cosmos’ Giorgio Chinaglia, completely missed on a shot that could have won the game – and the Soccer Bowl – for the Cosmos.

So let me ask you – is there a suitable way to definitively break a tie in professional soccer championships, whether at the World Cup or at the international or national level?  Remember, you can’t just dismiss penalty kicks for Japan without also dismissing the penalty kicks for the 1999 American Women’s World Cup team for their penalty kick win.  So tell me your ideas.