How to fix soccer's biggest problem - overtime and PKs in championship games

 

(Heck of a way to win a championship in front of millions of people)

I didn't get to this quite as quickly as I thought I would, but there's still time, because the World Cup isn't over.   And it may end the way that many of the knockout stage games have ended (and also the NCAA Division I championship game this year, and I think both men's and women's NCAA Championship Division I games last year, and many more through the past years, at every level of the sport) ...

with overtime and penalty kicks.

Regular club season soccer, like the English Premier League, or La Liga, or Bundesliga, or Major League Soccer, or the National Women's Soccer League, etc. - allow games to end in a tie.  In the standings, a tie means one point for each team, whereas if a team wins, it gets three points, and zilch for the loser.  The final standings are determined by points.  That's fine.

But in tournaments when a winner must be determined (not like the group stage), if the regular time ends in a tie, they add extra time, which in the World Cup is two 15-minute periods, and then penalty kicks.  Because it's so hard to score in soccer, PKs are frequently the outcome.  Unlike ice hockey, which will keep playing at full-strength in a tournament until someone wins (in the regular season NHL, they do a five-minute overtime and then penalty shots, but not in the Stanley Cup), soccer can't do that. The players would be exhausted, and the game could continue for hours.  And before PKs, sometimes it did.

But PKs seem like a cheap and unsatisfying way to end a major championship game.  So, modeled on the NHL regular season, I have an alternative idea.

In the extra time period, play 9-on-9.  I.e, 8 players on the field, and the goalkeeper.

Why?  Because having more space on the field means it's easier to score.  And it would be easier for some of the sport's big stars to score.  And people like seeing that happen.

Unlike the NHL, it wouldn't be sudden death/victory.  Each team could score multiple goals.  And if it was still tied at the end of extra time, it could still go to PKs.  For those that don't want to see that aspect of the sport go away, it would still be a possibility.  

It doesn't change the nature of the game, it doesn't affect the regular season method of determining a champion, and it doesn't detract from fan's enjoymen -- in fact, it should enhance it.  Because it's more exciting, though perhaps not more nerve-wracking, to watch the game on the field, and not a glorified coin flip to end some of the biggest sporting events in the world.

Discussion welcome, if anybody care.