Keepers Wield More Than Just Guesswork In The Battle Against Penalty Kicks
Photo: Michael Steele (Getty) Penalty kicks are bad. They’re dramatic and can be a fascinating experience out of context, but we don’t get to experience them out of context. We have to deal with penalties as a clumsy method of deterring fouls in the box and as a makeshift solution to tied games dragging on forever. The fact that they’re preferable to determining winners by flipping a coin isn’t much of an endorsement. That’s largely irrelevant griping, though. Referees have been awarding penalties since a debatable date in the late 19th century, and competitions have been deciding games with...
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