The Price of Conceding Late

Penalties have been around in a number of sports almost since the first rules were formalised. While penalties to decide the outcome of drawn fixtures have been in place for almost half a century in most sports.

The penalty in football is believed to have been taken from Rugby, and of all people a goalkeeper William McCrum has been credited with coming up with the idea in 1890 in Milford, County Armagh, Ireland. It was initially knocked back by the International Football Association, but when tabled again a year later was accepted.

For those who like their trivia, the first penalty in competitive football was actually scored by an American. Mr J Dalton was playing for the Canadians against Linfield FC in 1891. It may come as no surprise that the first penalty in the highest level of football in England was awarded to Newton Heath in their match against Blackpool on the 5th of September 1891. Farman scored. Newton Heath became the team we know today as Manchester United.

In Field hockey the penalty stroke only came into being as late as 1963.

The penalty shoot out in football came about as a result of cup games going beyond one replay and extra time to decide a winner. There is some debate as to who came up with the concept, but it is believed to have been Israeli Michael Almog who with the help of Malaysian Koe Ewe Teik managed to get it ratified with FIFA. It was the Malaysian who wrote up the proposal and pitched it to the referees, and therefore has always taken the lion’s share of the credit. It is worth mentioning that in Italy and the old Yugoslavia they had been deciding matches by penalty shoot outs in the 1950’s.

The first international match to feature a penalty shoot out was the 1976 European Championship final between what was then Czechoslovakia and West Germany. After a 2-2 draw Uli Hoeness was the first to miss and Czechoslovakia won 5-3.

In field hockey penalty strokes were used to determine tied matches. The sport, like football, tried extra time and also extra time golden goal, the first scorer winning the match, but the shoot out always seemed to be the favoured decider.

In 2011 the International Hockey Federation switched to a shoot out similar to Ice Hockey in which players have a set time to go one-on-one with the goalkeeper to score, as a way of deciding tied matches. Extra time was also abolished and teams went directly to a shoot out.

Having commentated a number of games that have ended in a draw and then gone to a shoot-out it started to appear as if the team that scored the equalising goal invariably went on to win in the shoot out. So I decided to look at this a little closer.

First of all in the FIFA World Cup in Russia there was only one game that was settled in extra time, and that was Croatia’s 2-1 victory over England in the semi final. There were however four matches that went to a penalty shoot out after extra time had been played. In the first Russia scored the equaliser in the normal 90 minutes against Spain and then won the penalty shoot out. Croatia equalised against Denmark, but in the 4th minute of normal time and then went on to win in the shoot out. Colombia equalised in the dying minutes against England, but in this case England won in the penalty shoot out. Then in the quarter finals Croatia equalised to take Russia into extra time, but Russia equalised to take it to a shoot out which Croatia won. So fifty percent of the games were won by the team that scored the equaliser that forced a shoot out.

Out of the 149 matches played in the English FA cup in 2017/18 only two matches went to penalties. In the first round Guiseley equalised late against Accrington Stanley and then won in the shoot out. The only other game to go to a penalty shoot out was Chelsea’s game against Norwich City. Norwich equalised late but lost in the shoot out. So once again the results are even.

In Hockey at the recent Asian Games in the semi finals of the men’s tournament Malaysia equalised against India in the last minute. With no extra time they went straight into a shoot out. Malaysia won 7-6. Then in the Gold medal match Malaysia were leading 6-4 with two minutes to go and conceded twice to Japan. The game went into a shoot out, and on this occasion Japan won 3-1.

So I have looked back over the key tournaments in the past year in the world of Hockey. In the women’s World Cup there were three games that finished 0-0 and went to a shoot out, but because there was no late goal, or an equaliser these were not looked at. In their semi final match against Spain, Ireland conceded a late goal, but still won the shoot out 3-2. In the other semi final, the Netherlands were 1-0 up against Australia and conceded an equaliser in the second half, but they too won the shoot out 3-1.

In the Hockey World League semi finals there were more examples as you will see here:
Semi Finals – Johannesburg
Men
Ireland equalised against France and won the shoot out 4-3
Germany equalised against Spain and won the shoot out 4-3

Finals – Bhubaneswar
Quarter Finals – Belgium equalised with India but lost the shoot out 2-3.
Quarter Finals – Germany equalised with the Netherlands and won the shoot out 4-3.

Semi Finals – Johannesburg
Women
Semi Final – USA equalised with England and won the shoot out 2-1.
Final – USA equalised with Germany and won the shoot out 3-2.

Semi Finals – Brussels
Quarter Final – Belgium equalised v Korea but lost shoot out 2-3
Crossover – Spain equalised with Italy but lost shoot out 3-4
Semi Final – Netherlands equalised with New Zealand and won shoot out 5-4.

Finals – Auckland
Quarter Final – Korea equalised with Germany and won the shoot out 3-1.

So out of 15 International matches the team that equalised to force a shoot out went on to win on nine occasions, or 60% of the time. In the women’s game of the eight times it went to a shoot out, the equalising team only won in the shoot out in half of the games. In the men’s game the team that equalised went on to win the shoot out five times out of six games. In percentage terms 83% of the time.

If we look at how many times the equalising goal was scored in the last quarter it was eight times in the fifteen games mentioned and seven times the team that scored the equaliser went on to win the shoot out.

If we want to bore down into the club level, in the European Hockey League at the start of the year in the round of 16, Rotterdam drew with Mannheimer scoring the equaliser in the 59th minute, they went on to win the shoot out 5-4. In the quarter finals Herackles equalised with Real Club de Polo in the 40th minute, they won the shoot out 7-6.

In the Australian Hockey League both finals went to a shoot out. In the women’s tournament the Victoria Vipers equalised in the 60th minute and went on to win the shoot out 2-1. In the men’s final the Victoria Vikings scored in the 51st minute to tie the scores up with the Queensland Blades, they won the shoot out 3-0.

So once again all the teams that equalised won the shoot out. All three who scored in the last quarter won the shoot out.

So in 19 games that went to a shoot out the team that equalised won 13 of them. Of those 13 victories on 10 occasions the team that won the shoot out scored the equaliser in the last quarter. In other words 76% of the time.

Interestingly in the FIFA World Cup those teams that scored in the dying minutes of normal time or extra time to equalise lost their penalty shoot out.

It would appear that in football it is not such a big deal, but in Hockey the odds are stacked in favour of the team that scores the equalising goal in the last quarter and takes a game into a shoot out; especially in the men’s game. No doubt some will say that this raises the debate that there should be extra time before a shoot out, but making the game marketable for Television will no doubt soon snuff out that argument.