easy

i kinda like the idea, its at least worth a try

This post was edited by ampoo on May 5 2017 10:32am

i was surprised to learn it was THAT significant of an advantage. i mean obviously you want to go first, that's well established but 21%, that's unexpected to be honest...

concerning your comments about how much maths can contribute to "solve" this as it's mostly a psychological matter i don't quite understand what the problem is. being "B" in "ABAB" is NOT a mathematical disadvantage - it's ONLY psychological. it's added pressure having to equalise, which will be more fairly distributed by switching this advantage around each round. you still have a slight advantage if you shoot first, but it will be significantly smaller that way.

to be fair, i also did not consider this one of the pressing issues in football but i think it's overall an easy enough change to implement and if it contributes to a fairer outcome, i'm 100% in favour of giving it a try...

Beyond the psychological factor, it's an advantage in the sense that starting off first guarantees that you will not shoot less penalties that your opponent. Since penalties are usually scored, the more you get, the better it is.

If after 3 rounds the score is 3-1, that means that if the next penalty goes in then team A will automatically win and will have had the chance to score one more penalty than team B (since team B will never take that round 4 penalty). It is impossible in any setup for team B to have that advantage with the current rules... but if they changed it ABBAABBAA... then both teams will have the chance of having one more penalty attempt than the opposition, regardless of who begins the shootout.

i still don't get the "disadvantage" you get. a penalty shootout is only shortened like this if the game is decided because one team already missed two. if you have the chance to equalise you get the shot - so why is it a mathematical disadvantage?
don't get me wrong, i'm not definitively saying it isn't, it's just that i really don't understand it right now if it is, maybe i'm just being dumb here...

In the example of the decisive penalty having been he first of the 4th round (the 7th penalty), team A will have been in the advantageous situation (taking the penalty) 4/7 times (57% of the time), while team B will only have been 3/7.

yeah but that's the case because of the psychological advantage leading up to that point. there is no intrinsic mathematical advantage since the penalty shootout is NOT limited by any factors outside the theoretically "fair" distribution of penalties for each team (like time or limited number of max penalties).

i understand what you're saying but to me that's not a mathematical advantage but the actual advantage of going first described in mathematical terms. maybe i read too much into the posts and that's what you were saying all along, i just thought somewhere along the line we started distinguishing mathematical and psychological advantages and i was curious in what case a mathematical adv would occur, because i think that's just not true...

Interesting proposal.
And if this statistically favors the 2nd team by around the same percent what then?

Not necessarily. It could be a technical advantage that is leading you to that situation where you miss 2 early penalties. Maybe your shooters are crap or the opposing keeper is Diego Alves. While psychology is indeed easily the biggest factor in shootouts, there are other factors involved as well.

i would argue it still favours the 1st team (since they are the first to go first and should the shootout be decided in the "regular" 5 shots each, team A went first 3 times as opposed to 2 times for team - but significantly less.

ofc that all changes within a shootout as soon as someone misses we're assuming ideal cases (same percentage penalty takers in both teams in the same order), while at the same time trying to account for a certain psychological advantage for going first and thus being able to put the opponent under additional pressure.

the question is obviously what sample size we could consider big enough to ignore the fact that this ideal scenario is virtually never the case.
anyway, i fully expect this to have the desired effect - make the coinflip of who goes first less relevant for the outcome...



well, if your team sucks or the opposing gk is just godlike you still win going 2nd. OBVIOUSLY skill plays a role, i would not dismiss that at all for a single penalty shootout. however, that's a different point entirely and still not what i'd consider a "mathematical" advantage.

to be clear, when i referred to external factors, i was talking about the rules (things the FIFA can actually influence) - team skill obviously is not part of that.

for the sake of this argument, i was thinking about the "ideal" scenario i described above and on paper, the current mode is fair (mathematically speaking) - IF you don't account for the psychological advantage. the 21% clearly prove you should though, and that's what the new mode tries to change. i mean, the whole point of that satisfyingly big sample size is to ELIMINATE the skill difference from each of the shootouts it contains.

This post was edited by fender on May 5 2017 04:43pm