Manchester United, Villarreal, and Platonic Penalties
In praise of a penalty shootout that was, essentially, perfect.
There is a certain, inexorable ecstasy or misery that comes at the end of a penalty shootout. For better or worse, every single thing that occurs in the 120 minutes prior to it does not matter. There is no past. There is just a taker, a goalkeeper, and a couple meters of heavy air separating the two. It might not be a reliable indicator of the game or representative of how it is played, but it is the drama of the sport distilled into its most pure form. There is a ball, there is a goal. There is a winner, there is a loser.
Villarreal, winners of a European trophy for the first time in the club’s history, got to experience the ecstasy, in all its memory-erasing glory. United got the misery, and subsequently, all the moments of the match that could have prevented this shootout. But you know all of that stuff. Let’s talk about penalties, because this shootout felt close to the best version of the tiebreaker.
Penalties, as an exercise, probably aren’t the most fair way to resolve a tie. They are a training exercise that have almost no bearing on a real-game situation. This is one of the reasons I will proclaim the supremacy of the old NASL- and MLS-style penalty shootout, which at the very least feels a tiny bit more like an instance that could feasibly occur in a real game, as opposed to shooting a stationary ball mere feet from goal, with no pressure placed upon the kicker by defenders, and the goalkeeper glued to their line. But! It’s what we’ve got. And to that end, I think there are a few scenarios that constitute the ideal penalty situation.
The first, and most obvious one, is that at some point, a goalkeeper must take a penalty. This is just obvious. A goalkeeper in any scoring opportunity is always a highlight of a game, and forcing goalkeepers to face off in this way is something everyone always wants to see. And goalkeepers that are actually really good at penalties and take them regularly are cool (shouts out the god Rogerio Ceni), but I like it most when teams are clearly trying to hide their goalkeepers. When they save those guys for dead last. When they say, with their penalty order choice, “oh god, please don’t let it get this far.”
But something else occurred in the United-Villarreal shootout that I didn’t realize I enjoyed so much: the perfect penalty run. Twenty-one straight penalties were taken and converted before a save was finally made, on the very last penalty before the shooting order returned to the top. Yes, there is more drama created by saves and misses, but there is also more anguish. The normal person can only take so much. I actually quite enjoyed seeing so many competent penalties, and there was something aesthetically beautiful about the complete, full penalty shootout, finished with the very last player to take a penalty. I didn’t have to watch any one player feel the weight of the entire season come crushing down on them because of one misplaced shot, except for a goalkeeper, a person who will not be blamed for taking a bad penalty because taking penalties, fundamentally. is not his job.
There have been more dramatic penalty shootouts. There have been better penalties taken and penalty saves made. The full arc of what we saw in Poland on Wednesday evening, however, felt Platonic in its own way. Beautiful in its full and complete glory.
And, well, Manchester United lost. So we get to laugh about that.
Stream Schedule
We’ve got two shows coming up for you in the next couple days!
THURSDAY, MAY 27th, 2:00 EST/11:00 PST: Daily show! Covering all the manager swapping already taking place in Europe, as well as promotion/relegation playoffs and even a Cup final or two.
SATURDAY, MAY 29th, 3:00 EST/12:00 PST: Watch party for the Champions League final! Come hang out with us.
SUNDAY. MAY 30th, 1:30 EST/10:30 PST: Watch party for USMNT vs. Switzerland! It’s a brunch viewing appointment, people.
The Coaching Carousel Begins
Yo dawg, we heard you like English and German managers taking different English and German jobs, so we decided to do that with literally every other country.
AND FOR GOOD MEASURE, we made sure there were rumors that Tottenham was going to replace the man that they replaced Mauricio Pochettino with by getting… Mauricio Pochettino.
There’s a lot to talk about on today’s stream.
Sydney Leroux SZN
Syndey Leroux’s professional journey has been a winding one, with injuries and multiple pregnancies derailing the national team prospects of a player who was once a mainstay with the USWNT.
That definitely doesn’t mean you should count her out.
Leroux has scored two goals in three games to open the NWSL season, and already had a goal in the bag from the Challenge Cup. She’s recaptured the speed and incisiveness that’s always made her such a constant threat as a forward, pairing it with a veteran wiliness, terrorizing back lines and punishing lazy passes. All that to say: Sydney Leroux is back, and everyone should be on notice.
The Case of Olivia Moultrie
15=year-old Olivia Moultrie looks like she might be the first professional NWSL player under the age of 18 after a judge granted a temporary restraining order on the NWSL’s age restrictions. Moultrie sued the NWSL for preventing her from signing a pro contract, based on the grounds that MLS and foreign soccer leagues sign players under the age of 18 all the time, and that there was no valid competitive reason the NWSL could enforce such a rule.
The court, so far, agrees with Moultrie’s argument. The ruling could be a landmark one for the women’s game in the States, and this case is one to keep an eye on.