Argentina and France should have refused to do PKs. And been universally praised like Barshim and Tamberi.

Having coached a high school team in the state championship game that went to the 10th round of penalties (and lost), I am fully aware of the emotions involved with PKs. Some fans hate them, but nothing compares to the drama and excitement of a penalty shoot out. If you came away from yesterday's game thinking "man, we gotta do something about these PKs" then you probably should find another sport to watch.

Or in baseball, if it is tied after 11 innings, we have a homerun derby to decide the winner

OP - An illiterate fool.

Rojo is right.

Barshim and Tamberi created the most shameful moment in the history of sports, I don't get the praise.

If Mbappe and Messi decided to do the same yesterday people would riot.

There are a lot of rules to be changed in soccer, I wouldn't start with PKs tho.

Game is mostly boring, even the final was boring up to the 80th minute.

It was the worse ever by then, ended up being the best ever by the end.

I played my first game of competitive 11 v 11 football aged 7 in the 1970s. I played continuously for teams inside and outside school in local leagues until my mid 30s. I have watched probably thousands of matches at all levels. I have read a lot about the history of the game. A lot of the worldwide appeal of football is that it is a simple game with simple rules and it needs to stay that way. Over the last few decades ideas to avoid deciding knockout games/finals with penalties have been tried, notably the silver goal and the golden goal. Statistically all that seemed to happen was to encourage more defensive play. The alternative that has not been tried is to simply play until someone scores. I understand the objections to this but interestingly I believe that in WCs before 1966, the solution was no extra time but instead have a replay the next day. Indeed the English FA cup final was like this into the 1980s.

I love how people who don't watch the sport at all have these great takes on what would make it better.

Shootouts are absolutely a fair way to end a game that's deadlocked after two hours of playing. There's a huge amount of skill involved, and the "luck" of winning a shootout is no greater than the "luck" involved in winning a game 3-2. It's a sport of very fine margins: one badly-timed tackle, one shot that's a few inches off target, one moment of lapsed concentration, and the result is different.

Incidentally, this is why pro leagues don't have playoffs. The only safe way to ensure the title goes to the best team is to play several dozen games and see who comes out on top. Cups, including the World Cup, have always involved a lot of luck. There's room for both kinds of competitions.

Setting aside the fairness issue, shootouts are great drama. There's also no practical alternative. The odds of a goal getting scored goes down as players get more and more exhausted. Even by the end of added time, the game is often starting to become a farce. And the injury risk is serious.

Expanding the goal, as you suggest, would fundamentally change the game. People would be taking shots from very long distance because the keeper would not have the ability to cover the goal, and you wouldn't need to be an extraordinarily accurate shooter to score, whereas with a normal goal, only really excellent players can reliably score from outside the box. Everyone on the field would be bombing balls towards the goal. This would force the defense to play a very high pressure all over the field. It would not be recognizable as the same game, and it would be pretty ugly to watch.

There's also the technical problem of what an expanding goal would look like. You say we "have the technology," but it's really not that simple. Are there going to be sliding tracks around the goal? That could be dangerous. How are you going to keep the net taught at different sizes? Are you replacing the net? That could take time. Finally, is this equipment going to be widely available so that everyone can train on it?

Penalties are dramatic and tend to favor the overall stronger team, but I'd still like to see them play until there is a winner with sudden death, if necessary, after the first two fifteen minute periods. If you like, you could maybe even bring back some of your subbed out players or get extra subs, so, for instance, France might have brought back Giroud, who I could not figure out why he was subbed out--he had four goals going into the game and created multiple good chances every game--and Argentina could have brought back DiMaria, who was the absolute key to their first two goals and was unstoppable by France.

Won't say I fixed it for you, but I do think it is important to note.

Correcting myself from earlier, the last English FA Cup final that went to a replay after extra time was 1990 Manchester United v Crystal Palace. I would be up for a WC final replay

If you make the goal larger, you just force the teams into keeping more players back on defense. The defensive line would go from 4 to 5 or even six with a wider goal. And more players would have to stay back when on offense because a fast break would almost automatically mean a goal. So, you would just end up with a game that gets more and more defensive as time goes on making it less and less likely to get the golden goal.

PKs are an integral part of soccer. Both France and Argentina had goals on PKs in regular time and many games are won or lost on PKs in regular time.

Half the goals are scored after someone pretends to get hurt

No kidding. He actually wrote the following and thought it looked just fine when he posted it:

Have you tried asking someone to kick you as hard as possible in the shins? Happened to me every game I played in, hurts like hell shinpads regardless. Yes there is cheating, move on, every sport has cheating and gamesmanship, it would be great if it didn't.

Problam drinkers are noun to be lyers.

I dislike settling things on shootouts or penalty kicks. If you make it to the quarter finals tied after the first match, then it should be a best of three tournament. If you make it to the semi-finals tied after the first match then it should be a best of five tournament. If you make the finals tied after the first match then it should turn into a best of seven tournament. There's a reason why some American sports have seven game finals.

Could you imagine if Major League Baseball had a home run derby to break ties after nine innings, or the NBA had a three point contest to break ties?

Play your game. Kick the ball around the pitch until someone scores a goal. And quite being a bunch of Nancy Boys.

Soccer isn't for you. And that's okay.

You're correct. And thank you for not making so feeling so bad about it. I don't hate the sport, but for me it's about as exciting as watching paint dry on a wall. Also I feel the same way about watching baseball on tv. I'll have a great time at a baseball game. But if I try watching one on tv I'll have a three or four inning nap.

That happens maybe 1 out of every 10 times, the rest of it is fake AF.

Even when it does happen, they aren't aiming for the shins, unless they want to be sent off.

No use getting offended about it!

This was the best post ever!

It is not good sportsmanship to share gold. It elevates the medal ahead of the spirit of competition.