Other Alternatives
Exploring Alternative Tiebreakers
NASL Shootout
Any serious alternative to penalties has to respect one simple truth. Football is about scoring goals. A tiebreaker should not be decided by corners, cautions, woodwork strikes or statistical substitutes for the thing the sport is built around. At the end of a drawn match, supporters need to see the ball go into the net.
That is why the NASL shootout remains the most interesting historical alternative to penalties. It was dynamic, purposeful and goal based. It recognised that a football match should be decided by movement, skill and finishing rather than a static kick from 12 yards.
The NASL shootout began 35 yards from goal, with the attacker given five seconds to score against the goalkeeper. It was later used in Major League Soccer and remains one of the few serious attempts to create a more open and football based alternative to penalties.
Few footballers understood the game more deeply than the greatest exponent of Total Football, Johan Cruyff. He experienced the NASL shootout firsthand and said, “This is spectacular and not as brutal as penalties.” 22 In a documentary in 2006 he also said, “I still think in Europe they should try it.” 51 Another legend of the game, Carlos Alberto, said in the same film that the NASL shootout “makes the game more emotional.” 51
The dynamic nature of the American shootout rendered the penalty shootout as a static and clinical contest. It created movement, uncertainty and genuine football action. The attacker had to control the ball, beat an advancing goalkeeper and finish within five seconds.
MLS discarded their shootout in 1999, not because it was unpopular, but because they wanted “to bring the MLS game into accordance with how the game is played throughout the world.” 63
Former USA goalkeeper, Winston DuBose says, “FIFA wanted to whip America into line with the rest of the world. The NASL shootout is unbelievably exciting. Can you imagine Lionel Messi against Tim Howard, or something like that? It would be unbelievable to see that, fantastic. FIFA’s extremely reluctant to change and it’s crazy.” 53
How ADG Goes Further
ADG shares the NASL shootout’s belief that match resolution should be dynamic and goal based, but it also addresses the American shootout’s main weakness. Over time, the NASL format became too predictable, with goalkeepers repeatedly rushing off their goal line to narrow the angle. Many contests became indistinguishable from one another, leaving the format as a repetitive 1v1 scenario rather than a varied and spontaneous football contest.
ADG changes that completely by adding a defender. The attacker is no longer solving the same one against one problem each time. Every contest is shaped by the defender’s speed, positioning, angle of recovery and tactical choices, as well as the goalkeeper’s movement and the attacker’s own decision making.
That gives every ADG contest its own tactical shape. One attack might be decided by a perfectly timed tackle. Another might be won through acceleration, disguise, a long range shot, a quick cut inside or a goalkeeper forced to hold position because the defender has delayed the attacker. The defender turns the format from a footrace into a genuine football contest.
ADG also involves the whole team. It is not simply five isolated kickers taking turns against a goalkeeper. Attackers, defenders and goalkeepers all contribute directly, so the result reflects collective football ability rather than the isolated success or failure of a handful of players.
Managerial strategy is also far more important in ADG. Managers must think about attacker order, defender matchups, fatigue, sequencing, substitutions and game state. The result is not just a test of nerve. It is a test of preparation, judgment and tactical intelligence.
Fair play is another advantage. Yellow and red cards carry into ADG, so discipline during regulation time still matters. A team reduced to ten players enters ADG at a real disadvantage. That gives reckless or cynical play a clear sporting cost, something the NASL shootout and penalty shootout do not achieve in the same way.
ADG also leaves room for rare wildcard moments, including the possibility of a direct long-range shot from the ADG mark. Fans love a goal from distance, and a successful strike from that situation would be a highlight-reel moment remembered long after the match.
ADG was not inspired by the American shootout and was developed totally independently. Growing up in Australia, Tim Farrell had no exposure to the NASL shootout and only became aware of it after creating ADG. The comparison is still useful because it shows that football has already experimented with more dynamic ways to decide drawn matches, and that some of the game’s greatest figures saw value in moving beyond penalties.
| Feature | NASL Shootout | ADG Format |
|---|---|---|
Tactical variety | Limited | Yes |
Unpredictable Contests | Limited | Yes |
Showcases defensive skills | No | Yes |
All players involved | No | Yes |
Managerial Strategy | Limited | Yes |
Incentivises fair play | No | Yes |
Shoot from kick off | No | Yes |
NASL Shootout and ADG Compared: The NASL shootout proved that a dynamic, goal-based tiebreaker could be exciting, but ADG goes further by adding defenders, involving the whole team and making each contest tactically distinct.
Other Suggestions
Other alternatives have been proposed over the years, but most fall into one of two broad problem areas. They either extend the match further, increasing fatigue and injury risk, or they decide the result through something other than football’s central act of scoring goals.
One idea is to hold a penalty shootout before extra time, with the winner taking a half goal advantage into the additional period. The intention is to force the losing team to attack. The problem is that it may also encourage the team with the advantage to defend deep, counterattack and protect its lead. In modern football, where teams are highly organised and dangerous in transition, that could make extra time even more tactical and cautious.
Other suggestions, such as endless extra time or gradually removing players, create different problems. They may produce drama, but they also risk excessively long matches, greater player fatigue, higher injury exposure and major scheduling uncertainty. No organiser, broadcaster or medical team can easily plan for a match with no reliable endpoint.
ADG avoids these weaknesses. It does not extend open play into another fatigue-affected half hour. It does not decide the result through corners, cautions or abstract statistical measures. It keeps the focus on scoring goals while addressing player welfare and their ever-increasing workloads.
ADG also preserves one of the great strengths of penalties: the unmistakable sense that a result is imminent. Even casual viewers understand that every contest may decide the match, but unlike penalties, the drama in ADG comes from movement, speed, defending, goalkeeping, finishing and managerial tactics.
Quite simply, the beauty of ADG is that it combines the skill and athleticism of modern football with the inherent tension and climactic drama of penalties.
- Garber, Don, Shootout banned; TV lineup changed. CNN, 18 November 1999[↩]