INTRODUCTION

Attacker Defender Goalkeeper (ADG) is a new alternative to the penalty kick shootout. ADG features a series of ten contests in which an attacker has thirty seconds to score a goal against a defender and a goalkeeper. At the completion of the ten contests, the team with the most goals is the winner.

The 5th August 2010 marked the fortieth anniversary of the penalty kick shootout and if indeed it ever had a place in the sport, then that time has indisputably come to an end. No other aspect of football is as universally unpopular with players, coaches and supporters. Let’s make sure that it’s not another forty years before this blight on an otherwise beautiful game is eradicated.

The advantages of ADG include:

  1. All players compete
  2. Showcases skill and athleticism
  3. Positive natured competition
  4. Strategy is vital
  5. Promotes attacking play
  6. Promotes fair play

It's also important to recognise that with the 2010 World Cup final we were only four minutes away from having two consecutive finals decided by penalties. With so much at stake in modern football, the likelihood of a showpiece match like a World Cup or Champions League final ending in a stalemate, has inevitably increased. In a survey involving close to four hundred people, 51% said that they thought shootouts were a lottery. In the same study, half of those surveyed believed there was a better way than shootouts to determine the result of drawn games.1

ADG is about the promotion and preservation of the beauty of the game. And what's better for the game – a player walking up and converting a penalty kick to win a major competition, or the same player at full speed, swerving past a defender and bending the ball into the back of the net? But ADG isn't just about the attacking players, it also gives defenders and goalkeepers equal opportunity to shine.

The undeniable benefit of ADG is that it combines the skill and athleticism of modern football with the inherent drama and tension of the penalty shootout. Most importantly, ADG provides a competitive environment where the superior football team will ultimately claim victory.

TERMINOLOGY

While kicks from the penalty mark is the official name, this website will use the more familiar - penalty kick shootout. And penalty shootout, penalties or just shootout, will be used interchangeably.

The term regulation time will refer to the standard ninety minute period and also include the thirty minute extra time period if it is incorporated into the competition rules.

FACTS AND TRIVIA

Two FIFA World Cup finals in each of the men's and women's competitions have been decided by the penalty kick shootout.

Five of the last twelve UEFA Champions League Finals have been decided by the penalty kick shootout.

Six of the last fourteen CONMEBOL Copa Libertadores Finals have been decided by the penalty kick shootout.

Israeli Yosef Dagan and former German referee Karl Wald, both claim to be the inventor of the penalty kick shootout.

FIFA World Rankings calculate the value of a win as three points, a win on penalties as two, a draw and a loss on penalties as one and a loss as zero.


"Penalties are awful, unfair, but what else is there?"

Laurent Blanc
Former French Player