And then, ouch. That is what is so cruel about the shoot-out. When Keegan's remark was publicised last week, the sages at the Football Association went into emergency session and, a few hours later, Keegan issued a formal denial on the lines that he hadn't said anything of the sort and if he did, he didn't mean it. Once upon a time, it would indeed have come down to luck. Watching the 1966 World Cup semi-final between West Germany and the USSR on Sky Sports the other night, in my official capacity as your resident Mr Sad, I was struck to hear Ken Wolstenholme say that if the game was level after extra time, it was down to the drawing of lots.
Many people seem to struggle even now to adapt to the new system.
And almost every time, it will be the bigger team with the more talented, technically gifted and confident players who will win it. God knows why, but just as football folk invariably confuse irony with coincidence, so they mistake cruelty and arbitrariness. Ever since, German players have practised penalties so remorselessly that only Stieleke in the 1982 World Cup semi-final with France has missed, and even then the Germans won in the end. From the moment Hoddle made that remark, one sensed that tragic inevitability had kicked in, and that he would surely be punished for his arrogance. One feels a similar sensation now reading Keegan's similar sentiment and it may be only the unlikelihood of Keegan's England progressing to a knock-out match at all that saves us from a humiliating encounter with that all too familiar Nemesis from 12 yards out.