Soccer Penalty Kicks

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What can you do with a quarter of a second? There is not a whole lot that can possibly be done in this amount of time. This is a little more than the amount of time that a goalie on a penalty kick has before the ball is in the back of the net. Due to our human reaction speed a goalkeeper has to choose which way he is going to dive before the ball is even kicked. The result lies with the luck of the goalkeeper. This hardly seems like a good idea; however, this is how overtime works in soccer games. After two 15 minute halves in overtime, the fate of the game is passed on to penalty kicks. Although this method may be a quick easy way to determine a winner, it is not the best option. The rules of soccer overtime need to be changed because penalty kicks do not give a good representation of which team is better and there are better ways to make sure someone scores a goal. …show more content…

Penalty kicks are based almost solely on luck because due to our human reaction speed. The average human reaction speed to a visual stimulus is 0.25 seconds, the same amount of time that the keeper has before the ball is past them (Experiment: How Fast Your Brain). Therefore in order to save a penalty kick the keeper needs to make a decision on which way he is going to dive before the ball is kicked. Whether or not the ball is saved is up to the luck of the goalie. This proves that penalty kicks are an unfair way to determine the outcome of a game, because they are based solely on luck. This shows that there needs to be a different way of doing overtime. In conclusion, the current overtime rules are inadequate and do not give a good representation of which team is

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