As written by Jim Allen, Outsports.Com

Sorry, no more penalty shootouts for you: I might be one of the few people on the planet who likes penalty shootouts deciding major football (soccer) tournaments. I think the drama and the tension are amazing, but FIFA President Sepp Blatter doesn't agree with me, the bastard. "When it comes to the World Cup final it is passion, and when it goes to extra time it is a drama. But when it comes to penalty kicks it is a tragedy. Football is a team sport and penalties is not a team, it is the individual". Well, OK then.

In a case of the cure might be worse than the disease, Blatter is proposing a tied match be replayed --a horrible idea and not at all workable due to TV-- or that players be subtracted as time goes on, which seems to mitigate against the whole nonsense he was bleating about "teams". Of course, haters *cough* Jim B. *cough* Cyd *cough* have a "play until you drop" attitude, but that would have the clubs such as Manchester United, Barcelona and River Plate that provide the players for national teams howling about potential injuries. It's a tough nut to crack, but hopefully more thought is put in to this before the next World Cup in South Africa in 2010 than the meager stuff Blatter is proposing. --Jim Allen

I don't know what Sepp Blatter is talkin about because I was literally on my knees during the whole England/Portugal Shoot-Out in the World Cup Quarter-Finals.

In the NHL, I love how Overtime works in the Playoffs where the game keeps going until someone scores. But I really don't think that would work in soccer. Like Jim said, the risk of injury is far too great by doing that. And really, if you don't want to go to Penalty Kicks...throw everyone you have up front and do what you can to avoid it hahahahaha.

Blatter has done a lot of good for the game...but please...just leave this alone.

I think penalty kicks and shootouts are a horrible horrible horrible way to decide a game, let alone a championship. If I really cared about soccer I'd want them gone. As I've said about hockey: if they ever put the shootout in the Stanley Cup Playoffs I will never watch a game again.

Shootouts may not be pretty but they are probably the best solution for soccer.

Consider the length of the field, the amount of energy expended (because most players have to run the distance of it), the 90 minutes with only one official break between halves.

This game is more physically exhausting than any major team sport except basketball, yet scores less than any except perhaps ice hockey.

I can understand that the macho nature of hockey would probably never allow them to decide games by such a sissy method as shootouts, but soccer is the self-described beautiful game.

There would be nothing "beautiful" about watching 10 guys with totally dead legs running the inevitable risk of serious major groin injury by trying to play until somebody scores when scoring could take another 90 minutes or more.

I wouldn't want to watch a bunch of players who can not be substituted, limping around and taking even more dives than usual to get rested, struggle to tough it out until someone scores.

Though tragedy is a part of life, if one so chooses, I find PK's more Shakesperean than Euripidean.

I agree with sportinlife...though shootouts are not pretty, they are the best solution to the problem. People might propose going to the old system- when games ended in ties, the teams often replayed a few days later. This strategy in the modern world would be a logistical nightmare though...and with club and country coaches at odds with each other over the number of games players play, adding more high-stakes games like that would only create more tension.