I bloody love football. Everything about the sport just ticks the boxes for me. Often, I can lose entire weekends watching build up punditry during breakfast, 12pm kick-off with dinner, evening matches with tea and then move to somewhere a bit more continental to see out the evening in Spain, France or even as far as the US for that extra footballing fix.

Despite this, I often find myself thinking of how the game could possibly become better. In these blog posts, I will take a part of the ‘Almost’ Beautiful Game, and examine possible ways that this part of football could be improved. To be very clear, these suggestions would most likely never occur, but just take a few minutes to imagine how good it would be to see.

The first thing that will be considered is penalties. Already one of the most edge of you seat moments of any football game, your star striker with an open shot at the goal with just the keeper to outwit. Filled with mind games, statistics of where the player will place the shot and even water bottle notes of where the keeper should dive, they’re incredibly exciting. However, I have put together 5 suggestions of what could make a penalty even more fantastic.

Managers Take Pens

First up, and in my opinion the most ridiculous but enjoyable improvements to the penalty is that they MUST be taken by the manager. If the referee points to the spot, the manager of the club must lace up their boots and step up to the plate. For 90 minutes, the manager will stand on the touchline shouting and screaming at players for misplaced passes, unnecessary skills and failing to track back quick enough, so this brings some of that pressure back onto their shoulders.

More and more former players are entering the world of management, and so this provides many the opportunity to roll back the years. Chelsea fans will always remember Lampard banging in plenty of penalties over the years, and could relive the feeling with his current role. Additionally, moving towards the international stage, Gareth Southgate will no doubt have mental wounds over the Euro 96 miss, but could put all that to rest in future tournaments if given the opportunity to bury a World Cup penalty from 12 yards.

Just imagine, injury time in a relegation 3-pointer, and up steps Roy Hodgson to try and tuck away a penalty with the final kick of the game. During his playing career, Roy managed just 1 goal, so this is his big chance to double up his goal tally. Still in his sharpest suit and tie, but now rocking the latest pair of Adidas Predators, he begins his run up, tries the Pogba-esque stutter. “OH MY GOD” screams the commentator, he’s gone for the Panenka but the keeper didn’t move. The match ends 0-0 and Roy is lying on the ground, head in hands. More work is needed on the training ground.

Poor Roy, but the crowd bloody loved it.

Goalkeeper Penalties

Probably the most-realistic of all these ideas as it is already something that has been seen on a few rare occasions, is that the keeper MUST take penalties. This adds in various elements of drama when taking the penalty, as the risk of a counter attack will add to the pressure of scoring. If the keeper manages to make a save, it will be a 100m sprint back for the number 1. Meanwhile, if the ball is parried by the defending keeper, will the attacking goalie go in for a rebound or play it safe and scramble back downfield. Additionally, one of a goalkeepers main traits is stereotypically being able to kick a ball very hard and far, so this could see some terrifying penalty shots being taken.

As mentioned this has already been seen on rare occasions to the joy of neutral fans around the world, although I’m not too sure about the supporters feelings towards it. Along with being a top-quality goalkeeper during his 25 year career, Rogério Ceni is known globally for his set-piece reputation. The São Paulo number 1 managed over 130 goals, with all but 1 coming from either penalties or free-kicks. This has undoubtedly led Ceni to become a cult icon, and certainly as a younger fan I became obsessed with playing as São Paulo on FIFA just so I could try and replicate this madness. Even now watching back some of the goals just seems so unusual but enjoyable, it would be amazing to see some more of this.

Even at one of Europe’s best clubs, Manchester City, there are already talks that Pep may be willing to allow Ederson to become the clubs number 1 penalty taker. Of course the reality of Guardiola actually putting this into use is unlikely, but Ederson certainly has hyped up his finishing ability so could we possibly see the goalkeepers getting involved. Keepers are now trained to become an outfield asset in starting attacking phases, so who knows where this could lead.

American Style

This idea rolls back the years to the 1970s and 80s with the North American Soccer League and later in the MLS 1996-1999. These penalty shootouts were essentially the US using a hockey-style penalty shot, in which the attacking player would start 35-yards from the goal, and be allowed 5 seconds to dribble with the ball before taking a shot at goal. This incorporated a more increased skill level, as the player would be needing to successfully dribble towards the goal quickly, while the keeper would have an advantage of closing down the attacker as they would in open play.

This style of penalty would bring about more attacking creativity and flair as we would no doubt see players over-complicating their dribble and failing to the amusement of the opposition. Meanwhile, it would give the keeper a massive advantage in how they deal with the oncoming attacker. In normal time, these penalties would involve the other players being placed around the halfway line, making urgent rushes back to the goal for any second chances.

These shootouts were changed in the MLS who went with the standard format we see today, however Marco Van Basten has suggested these shootouts may be used in World Cup competition at some point.

3-Pointer

Okay, earlier I said that managers taking penalties was the most ridiculous suggestion out of these lot, but this might just edge it. With this idea, there is an extra element of ‘bonus goals’ depending on how you score the penalty, or where you place the penalty. By doing this, you create something that resembles some kind of FIFA mini game element, but could create some interesting scenarios.

So lets say that you score a penalty as normal, run up, shoot and score. Well that would get you 1 goal. However, if you take your shot with a backheeled shot, you would treat that as 2 goals. Even as I write this, I feel like I’m going crazy and yet I cannot get the image of a team being 2-1 down and they are given a penalty in the final few minutes. Instead of playing for a point, the taker begins a backwards run up before hoofing the ball with his heel into the back of the net to take all 3 points.

As I said, this is like an idea from a fever-dream but it certainly could bring some creativity. Theres all-sorts to be considered with how the player would score and how each style would be rewarded, but something to think about FA, they’ve probably had worse ideas.

Dealers Choice

Finally, this idea came to me after I watched the referee give a penalty against my team in a match which was in no way a penalty challenge. Additionally, their attacker was NOT in a goalscoring position and so the penalty and subsequent goal felt like we’d been hard done by.

Because of this, I thought, well if the penalty was given to a defensive player, we should make that person take the kick. Then I thought, what if each game the opposition decided who would take the penalty for the other team. By allowing this, one team would still have the excellent scoring opportunity as before, but now the defending team must decide who would have the best chance of missing. I think this could add an element of controversy (to an already controversial area of the game), and create some tactical decision making during the game. Would they give the penalty to a defensive player who has never scored, or try their luck against an out-of-form striker. Decisions, decisions, decisions.

As with the previous thought, this idea came to me during a ‘frustrated’ footballing moment in which everything was going against my team. However, it would certainly add a new element to penalties.

I’ve certainly lost the plot with this.