When football turned to penalties to end 'cruel' system
When Israel's captain pulled a piece of paper saying 'no' out of a big sombrero hat that determined his side had lost their 1968 Olympic quarter-final to Bulgaria after a 1-1 draw, some within his country's footballing governing body were furious. Israeli Football Association official Yosef Dagan said there must be a better way to decide these big moments – or at least one that was, theoretically, less to do with luck and more to do with skill. Dagan and Michael Almog – who went on to become Israel FA chief - developed the idea of a penalty shootout before writing an official proposal to Fifa in 1969.
It was published in the governing body's official magazine. In the letter, Almog proposed "to stop this way of deciding the winner by drawing lots, an immoral and even cruel system for the losing team and not honourable for the winner". He called for it to be replaced by a shootout of five penalties for each side.
If the teams were still level after that then it would continue until one side missed and the other scored. The suggestion was heavily debated before eventually being adopted by football's lawmakers, the International Football Association Board (Ifab), at its AGM in Inverness on 27 June 1970. Aside from drawing lots, tossing coins and replays, there had been other ways over the years to settle draws, including sharing titles or counting corners, and there had also been versions of penalty shootouts at some domestic and minor competitions.
When BBC Sport asked Fifa to confirm whether the Watney Cup shootout was the first official penalty shootout, world football's governing body replied that is does not have "any records confirming or denying the claim". The National Football Museum does, though, refer to it as the first shootout in England. Various competitions, including the full rounds of the FA Cup until two seasons ago, still continued to use replays.
It was not until 1990-91 that the FA Cup introduced penalties if teams were level after extra time in a replay. After that Ifab decision in 1970, it was not long before the first opportunity came to see a penalty shootout being used to decide a professional football match. Would the successor to the coin-toss be any less cruel?