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Comment by kitd | Hacker News Reader

Wow, greatest ever final! Congrats Argentina and Messi.

Tough for France and Mbappe. Dead and buried at 80 minutes then took it all the way to penalties.

Felt a bit of schadenfreude seeing Mbappe sulk and being a sore loser, especially after what he said about South American teams.

Mbappe and Giroud act too cocky, always have a face on like they're the stars of a show and the camera's on them, and a lot of the time don't feel like they're playing for the team or as a team.

Argentina on the other hand acts as the sum of a machine's parts. And though Messi is a star, he doesn't act like it on the field, appears grateful for his team, and plays as a member of a team.

Super happy Argentina won, happy to have seen the SK vs Portugal match, and happy to have seen Morocco's games. But also happy to see Mbappe sit and pout even after pulling off a hat-trick in the final game of the world cup lol

Messi has by far one of the worst attitudes I’ve ever seen in a star player so I have no idea where this is coming from. He was petulant, nasty, and classless at various times throughout this very tournament.

We watched two different tournaments then

You must've been watching from a different universe in the multiverse then. Messi was class in the tournament and only responded "nastily" to the Netherlands since they were playing dirty and running their mouths disrespectfully. If you come at the King, you best not miss.

I’m also happy for Argentina, but I didn’t find Mbappe’s words any offensive. It is true that european teams are generally stronger.

> Wow, greatest ever final!

Meh, a penalty series spoils the nature of the game.

but after 120mins of play, somehow they have to make a decision.

A better approach I've heard someone coin is: after 90 minutes, you start taking away one player from both teams, every 5 minutes.

And if no more players are on the field and it is still a tie then what?

Use your imagination. Anyway, by that time, the number of red cards will probably have decided the outcome.

The odds of someone getting an open shot seems like it would make a goal all but inevitable.

Both coaches duel with pistols.

I think that's a pretty bad idea - the objective is for a team to win, having to tear apart your team every five minutes would be a very complex and niche tactical meta to master and will result in an incredibly slow paced game as lungs tire when teams get down to 7-8 players each. If teams are on even terms after 90 minutes, and cannot break the deadlock after 30 minutes of Extra Time then they're as evenly matched as possible and therefore deserve a way to win that doesn't break them physically. Whether or not they can handle it mentally is another matter [casts an eye towards England...]

I can say that as a player I can stomach a loss on penalties, I wouldn't say that I enjoy taking them but I could handle it. I would absolutely detest the idea of playing Extra Time with my teammates disappearing every few minutes.

Edit: hope it doesn’t sound like I was having a go at you for raising this proposal! On the contrary, I find it interesting when people want to tweak the game in creative ways and talk about it!

>I think that's a pretty bad idea - the objective is for a team to win

And a series of static 1v1s is more accurate than a series of 10v10s, 9v9s and so on?

People have criticized chess for pretty much the same thing wrt tie breakers for world championship, classic chess being decided by player's proficiency in a very different format and decision making.

I'm not saying I support the diminishing player count, but perhaps penalties should be deferred until another (3rd total) added extra time in the final match only. Maybe give the teams 2 extra subs if it is still tied after 2nd AET.

Yeah I honestly think it is - some extra time to try to get an edge then a series of set pieces where ultimately if they’re evenly matched everyone, even the goalkeepers, could end up taking a pen.

There’s no easy way to handle a situation like this, but utilising an already integral component of the game like penalties is probably the fairest solution, and it helps that it’s the one with the most excitement and drama for those watching. It could be much worse, before penalties a literal coin toss was used. If recall correctly teams made it thru to the European Cup (what the Champions League used to be called) final based on a coin toss

I don't know if that means the better "team" wins, but if that's the point I think is up for debate too...

Having said that in the US college hockey they do a 3 on 3 overtime. In contrast to a typical 5 v 5 game it is INTENSE. Crowd is on the edge of their seat and so on. Suddenly it's like some back yard / local ice rink where kids just get together to play style game.

It's still the same game as far as the players go, but just more space and a great pass or move to shake a defender / goal keeper is huge.

I don't know if that's the best route to go, but it really is exciting and I prefer it to shootouts by far.

Interesting!

> I don't know if that means the better "team" wins, but if that's the point I think is up for debate too...

Of course you should keep in mind that if you want the better team to win with a p-value of e.g. < 0.001, then you will have to play hundreds of games ...

Yeah more so in such a low scoring sport I imagine where rando outcomes are possible?

It's a constant discussion I have where folks talk about a playoff is there to determine the best team but ... that's not really how it works. Having said that, I'd rather not see an endless "regular season" where we just tally up stats and everyone just goes home after playing a ho hum game and happy that they're statistical champs ...

I like playoffs, it produces those extraordinary moments of greatness that we seem to want in sports.

This is the quintessential American take on soccer. It's ok if you're not a soccer fan. Soccer doesn't need to be like hockey or basketball, where teams can be dogshit for most of the season and still wind up as champions.

I don’t know what the definition of dogshit is here but generally that’s not how it works… even to get into the playoffs..

How do you decide that?

But they already do just that: you have a finite number of players, a finite number of subs, and each player has a finite amount of stamina.

They could add an additional ball instead - every 5 minutes. Would be much funnier to watch.

Every 5 seconds and no stopping time

You would need an extra referee per extra ball.

In reality, they end up being like 140 mins.

(45+5)+(45+10)+(15+15+5)

Remember that additional 20 minutes is added because it's actually time they spent not playing. So in reality they're now playing a full 90 or 120 minutes after having in the past possibly played only 75 or 100.

And even those 20 min of injury time are probably waaayyy less than the time the game was actually on hold for due to injuries or other shenanigans.

Unfortunately TV time slots are so strict, that getting actual 90+30 min of game time cannot really be a thing anymore.

Thus, strategies to waste time dominate, much to the frustration of everyone except the winning team

I think TV channels deliberately schedule optional shit after these kinds of games, the thinking being that the pundits can fill time to the next nearest half-hour slot begins then the schedule can resume

Just flip a coin.

Will give enough incentive to try and win, but also be fair to both if there's a tie.

Oh yeah, that would have been SO much better and less controversial than a shootout. What a great way to end 120 minutes of people pouring their heart out. A coin flip

But teams are on par - so either crown them both or choose randomly.

Penalties is just a more elaborate form of a coin flip, still largely random.

People are not robots. Penalties do test the nerves of both teams. And besides, the feeling of fairness is more important than actual fairness in football. We don't watch it to get a perfectly stat driven understanding of the game, but because it's fun and emotional.

It is random, it’s definitely not as random as a coin flip

If penalties were truly random then teams wouldn't practice them. Goalkeepers wouldn't study their opponents' past penalties or use cheatsheets when facing kicks. There wouldn't be so much analysis and game theory poured into the perfect sequencing of kick-takers.

It's true that penalties test fewer skills than a full-fledged game of football. But they are still a contest of skill, not a game of chance.

Penalties are not random at all. There is a reason why some teams suck big time on penalties while others nail them all the time (or almost always, depending on the generation, players, etc).

I meant "random" is a sense that it doesn't really reflect which team is the best in the world. Penalties is a player-specific skill, but the football is a team sport first and foremost and the world champion status should reflect that.

If all that matters is to recognize the best team, then why bother with a knockoit stage, or even a world cup tournament? Just collate stats. The point is to play the game, and if both teams are evenly matched in regular play, to move to an acceptable tiebreaker so that someone wins. France has still come a very close 2nd place, which the tournament does reflect.

instead, if it's a draw after 90 minutes, just played until someone scores a goal.

They tried that, look up Golden Goal. Most people agreed it was a bad idea.

It's as if half of the people commenting here watched a soccer game for the first time today, lol. That's fine and all, but it's incredibly unlikely that a neophyte has all the solutions.

They may as well have literally flipped a 70.3/29.7 weighted coin 10 times.

I walked out of the pub in disgust.

Some goalkeepers are better. Some players are better. Both can be tired, or nervous. Each flip has a different weight. Anyway, people underestimate the amount of randomness in penalties.

After 2hrs of unhealthy heart rate that penalty shootout was cathartic. I might be biased by Argentina winning though..

Me and some friends doubted whether Messi had it in him to last the full 120, but he lasted. Good on them, a fantastic victory and an exciting game :)

He was definitely standing and walking a little more in those overtimes.

On the contrary, it amps up the intensity to the zenith. Penalty shootouts are brilliant entertainment and a great way to finish the game if tied after Extra Time.

You already had 3 of the 6 regular goals come from penalty kicks, and Messi/Mbappe get to kick them regardless of whether they were the fouled player. Absolutely seems that PKs are the dominant path to victory, I have to imagine the sports analytics community starting to focus on best strategies to maximize PKs rather than traditional goal-scoring.

If you follow soccer you will know that diving in the box trying to get a PK is a thing since… I don’t know, PKs were added to the rule? Seriously though, I’ve seen my share of games where a player had a good chance of scoring but decide to dive and try to get a PK instead. These days, with VAR, it might not work as well as it did before.

I don't follow soccer and never will. Messi is clearly an all-time great, maybe the GOAT, but that doesn't change the fact that the penalty kicks introduce too much randomness and a lot of "punishment doesn't fit the crime." Plus the fact that Messi or Mbappe get to shoot the PK even if they weren't fouled. That's why "hack-a-Shaq" was a legit strategy, Shaq had to actually shoot the free throws despite being the worst on his team at it.

There is a story that when penalties were first introduced they were seem as unfair by both players and goalkeepers. That was because at the time, the box (or perhaps just the penalty line) used to run from side to side. Rumor has it that players, because of that sense of unfairness, would miss the penalty on purpose.

Eventually the box was reduced and now penalties are a (99%) sure way of scoring.

I don’t know why you mentioned Messi and etc., I was replying to what you said about trying to optimize for PKs during a game.

This game was exceptional. Most games don't have any penalties.

"In Europe’s top five leagues, 10.41% of the goals were scored from penalties"

https://www.driblab.com/driblab-en/how-significant-are-penal...

Perhaps. But when the world was watching, Messi scored a PK in the quarter-final, the semi-final, and the final.

If I am coaching a national team, I am studying every game in this tournament and learning exactly what characteristics, what combo of players, what scenarios are most likely to generate PKs and going all-in with that strategy. Maybe Argentina's coach already did.

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