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Paraquat

Paraguay!

Can't say I'm surprised.  Germany's been teetering on the edge of disappointemt all tourney long.

he had one job!

I haven't spent a whole lot of time watching WC, but I ended up catching both of last night's games. 

It seems a bit weird... You have four teams who have spent years even qualifying for WC play. They've survived 3 games of group play to make the knockout round. They spend 90 minutes battling to a tie in normal time, and then another 30 minutes continuing to fight to remain still in a draw. 

And then they advance or go home based on... Penalty kicks? Which are nearly as arbitrary as whether the goalie guesses correctly which way to dive?

I mean, it was still exciting b/c you knew how much was on the line, but it also seems a bit like you're taking the result of years of effort and reducing it to something that's a series of coin flips, not really representative of the true strength of either team...

Since I'm not a soccer fan... Do soccer fans find it disappointing when matches end this way? Or is this something that you all find completely normal and appropriate as a way to end these knockout round games?

I'm not sure how else you'd do it.  If they went straight to PKs after regular time, then I suppose that would be weird.

But they actually add another 30 mins of "normal" game-play.

If it's not decided by then, then what else are you supposed to do?  Adding even more "normal" game-play could start to get dangerous from a fatigue-induced-injury perspective.

You've played to a tie after 120 minuts of gametime, and it's becoming unsafe to continue.  So a coinflip is as good a way as any to decide the outcome.  And PKs are a very exciting form of coinflip.

Just my opinion anyway.

Yeah, the problem is that after playing 2 hours, you need an ending and perhaps this is the best of all the other sub-optimal ways to do it...

Appreciate the feedback. Seems like it's something that even soccer fans may not "love", but accept.

Let me introduce you to college football, where we assume possession in OT -- in scoring range.

I feel for the Dutch goalie. Morocco won on penalties and he blocked one but accidentally knocked it in anyway. Rough.

He also had a hand on the tying goal at the end of regulation, but couldn't knock it away.