The Neverending Shootout
by Steve
I was only planning on staying up another ten minutes. I’ll just watch the end of extra time, I thought.
Liverpool’s 14-3 penalty shootout victory against Middlesbrough wasn’t the longest ever, but it wasn’t far off. There’s a near poetry, and a certain symmetry, to the game going to penalties after a last-gasp penalty in extra time. The briefest taster of what was to come. A moment of recklessness on Liverpool’s part, and nerve on Middlesbrough’s, to ensure we had the most dramatic finish that football offers.
But that was the weird thing with this penalty shootout. Shootouts are always nerve-racking, even when they are at the end of a League Cup second round game. There is survival at stake, not to mention the investment of the prior two hours. However, after a certain point, this shootout felt weird. The tension seemed to be replaced with disbelief. The players looked less worried, and more bemused. Anyone who can earn several thousand pounds a week playing football should be able to score a penalty. Virtually all of them did. Again and again. Over and over.
The shootout began to look like a training ground exercise. Even the centre-backs were scoring great penalties, high and well out of reach of the goalkeeper. Any goalkeeper wouldn’t stand a chance with penalties like those. The goalkeepers themselves seemed resigned to the futility of it all. They had saved one penalty each, but didn’t look like saving any more. For several kicks they seemed to just go through the motions – pick a side, throw yourself on the grass, pick the ball out the net. Or just watch the ball fly past and fall on your arse.
The shootout became less a test of nerve, more an exercise in concentration. Smiles broke out. Players got more confident. The penalties got better. The goalkeepers now just placeholders. The final penalty was wayward. The goalkeepers were never going to save one. It would take a break in the penalty takers attention, a penalty just too ambitious, not quite right.
An odd experience. A surreal spectacle. I sort of didn’t want anyone to miss. I also wanted to go to bed. And that I did. Finally.
Wait until next year 
It was rather wonderful. I hope, however,it does not foretell of a season of high drama and eventual success after having put fans through the wringer. My pre-season optimism is already shaken.
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I think I’d take the eventual success part! There seem to be some fundamental problems with the team – the defence still looks shaky, there’s less movement up front, and generally less confidence and verve than there was last season. Tomorrow’s game already feels like a really big moment in the season – a good win could give the team the lift it needs to keep getting results, but it also seems like they need to iron out some pretty significant issues on the training pitch too.
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It is even worse when you are there, the only one from the recent past I can remember is a League Cup semi when Palace played Cardiff 3 seasons ago. We knew that we would have to score virtually all ours as Speroni, while an excellent keeper, isn’t the best at saving spot kicks. The Palace team that night were some distance away from the Liverpool and ‘Boro players you describe, as we only found the back of the net once we were doomed and it was a very long trip back to S London on the coach.
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Returning from an away game you’ve lost is never fun, let alone on a weeknight, let alone after a penalty shootout, that is not only the most painful way of losing, but also guarantees a much later departure time. That couldn’t have been much fun at all!
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