Remi Garde - Departs Aston Villa

[ez]

Penalty shootouts aren't a lottery. They're about showing nerve and steel at a time when the pressure would be inexplicable. They deserved it.

Yes they are 

They're not. It's another one of football's lazy clichés. It takes skill to score a penalty, even more so with the pressure ramped up to 11. Definitely not a lottery.

Try and think about how the result of a football match is determined ( i.e over 90 plus minutes) with it's almost endless possible variations...Then think about a penalty shoot out...It's called a lottery to demonstrate the difference between winning an actual game of football, or winning a set piece competition. Oh, and most cliches have an element of truth in them otherwise they'd never become cliches in the first place, lazy or not.

It's still not a lottery.

If you have one team who are very good at taking penalties with a keeper who is good at saving penalties, then you got a much better chance than a team who aren't good at penalties and a keeper who isn't good at saving them.

I think they're a lottery and not part of the match. When we beat Inter Milan Spink didn't save any penalties but we still won it.

[PeterWithesShin]

I don't. There's no lottery that player A keeps calm and places it in the top corner and that player B bottles it and puts it in row ZZ. Same as a clear one on one isn't a lottery and player A scores with ease and player B panics and trips over his own feet.

[LeeB]

Maybe it's me but I cant bring myself to support any other English team even playing in Europe

It's not just you.

I particularly fucking hate the assumption of commentators during these matches that we're all back home, rooting for the English club.

These are always the same three or four clubs. Why on earth would supporters of any other club want them to win it when all it does is make the financial gap bigger?

I honestly wish nothing but ill on English teams in Europe - unless it is a piss pot club like Fulham, for example.

Well quite, as I'd posted a few pages back:

Maybe it's me but I cant bring myself to support any other English team even playing in Europe

It's not just you mate.

I hate all that jingoistic "get behind our boys" bollocks. These are our competitors, I hope they all crash and burn at the first hurdle.

I'll make exception for tin pot clubs that go far (Middlesborough for example)

Great minds and all that.

[pauliewalnuts]

They are definitely not a lottery - a lottery implies no skill involved, whereas there is obviously skill in penalties (keeper and taker).

I think the confusion is that the result of a penalty shoot out is extremely hard to guess, and that is the reason we hear the word "lottery" applied to penalties - in that case it is more understandable.

[PeterWithesShin]

The one thing you don't know is how players will react. Look at Baggio in '94 as an example, carried Italy almost single handedly to the final and then skied his penalty to give the trophy to Brazil. IIRC Baresi also skied his in the same shoot-out.

And as Paulie says, there's also skill and ability from keepers, look at how many Bosnich saved, that isn't luck.

[Tayls_7]

It would be different if it was a team of 11 Brits - I'd support them then against a European team.

Na, not even that. I never support another English team in Europe, in fact I actively want them to get knocked out.

There are mitigating circumstances. Yewnited, Liverpool, Chelsea, Leeds, Arsenal. The teams that have represented the PL over recent years have a long and prestigious history of being odious shitbags whose support is heavily supplemented by equally odious, mercenary shitbags.

[PeterWithesShin]

I laugh like a drain when English clubs fail in Europe. Not much on TV used to annoy as much as that twat Tyldesley during CL games acting like everyone in England wanted Manure/Chelsea etc to win.

[Villa in Denmark]

Even back to when I was a kid, I hated hearing that Liverpool had won again.

For some reason I was OK with Forest, even with Francis on board.

[Percy McCarthy]

Maybe it's me but I cant bring myself to support any other English team even playing in Europe

It's not just you mate.

I hate all that jingoistic "get behind our boys" bollocks. These are our competitors, I hope they all crash and burn at the first hurdle.

I'll make exception for tin pot clubs that go far (Middlesborough for example)

So will Mellin, evidently.

[LeeB]

Maybe it's me but I cant bring myself to support any other English team even playing in Europe

It's not just you mate.

I hate all that jingoistic "get behind our boys" bollocks. These are our competitors, I hope they all crash and burn at the first hurdle.

I'll make exception for tin pot clubs that go far (Middlesborough for example)

So will Mellin, evidently.

True dat homie.

I remember Chelsea as a kind of cockney mirror Small Heath, albeit with good away numbers.

[john e]

Just as an aside on the penalty thing
I dont accept any team winning any trophy on penalties

so in my little world Liverpool have only won the European cup 3 times Man Utd twice,
Same for Brazil in world cups and FA Cups also

It makes for interesting debates in pubs, especially when drunk,
'You didn't win the game of football as it should be won therefore you won it by default, it doesn't count'

[PeterWithesShin]

So we shouldn't have been in the '94 LC final then?

[john e]

So we shouldn't have been in the '94 LC final then?

Only applies to actually winning the trophy

[PeterWithesShin]

But how can penalties be fine in earlier rounds but not the final? What would you have done if we'd beaten Arsenal in May on pens?

[ciggiesnbeer]

Just as an aside on the penalty thing
I dont accept any team winning any trophy on penalties

so in my little world Liverpool have only won the European cup 3 times Man Utd twice,
Same for Brazil in world cups and FA Cups also

It makes for interesting debates in pubs, especially when drunk,
'You didn't win the game of football as it should be won therefore you won it by default, it doesn't count'

I like this world view. Football would be far better if it was applied. I encourage you to run as president of FIFA.