penalty shootouts 107

It would, and it is pretty simple. If the soccer bosses had posed the question to people who were football wise and statisticians in the following terms, " We need to know which side is the best at taking penalties. How many will they each need to take each to give us a fair result"? what would you guess the reply to be?

Certainly not one each until a miss....but why? Because a lucky keeper and a very good keeper of pens would not have enough chances to show that division in their skills. The more times you test them the more likely the difference will eventually show up. And it is the same with the penalty takers..

By the way. I never suggested that all penalties are a complete lottery. They can be well taken and badly taken, but the keepers luck can reverse both outcomes which makes it a lottery compared with the actual game.

You, and others, take my example of the roulette wheel too literally. It was simply one example of hundreds of the fact that if you want to test something, in order to reach a sensible conclusion, the bigger the test the more chance you have, and this is true of vetting anything from the stability of a new engine to the skill of a racing tipster. I don't understand why you find this so difficult to accept?

Think.............if they had chosen two pens to decide team 'a' would win, if 4 then team 'b' but if 6 then team 'a' again. The winner might, and often does, depend on at what stage the shootout ends, both teams having led at some stage. But this, according to you does not suggest luck playing a big part.

There can be no disputing this and it is obvious in the fact that they did not chose the simple one penalty each until a miss. We know why don't we? It is an admittance that it would be too few for a real test and therefore unfair. The fact that they extend it to 6 is an admission that we need numbers to make it a better, fairer test. Given that. the only question remaining is my original one, did they choose enough?

LC