With two of the last four World Cup finals settled by penalty-kick shootouts , Christopher Clarey revisits the tiebreaker debate. First, he recalls what Ian Thomsen of the International Herald Tribune said after Brazil won the 1994 World Cup on penalty kicks over Italy. Thomsen called it “the equivalent of taking Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson off the Augusta National after 72 even holes and ordering them to settle The Masters at the Putt-Putt miniature golf course on Route 17 somewhere outside the city.”

Then Clarey, inspired by the ice hockey tournament at the recent Olympics, becomes not the first but perhaps the latest to suggest reducing the number of field players during overtime in hopes of encouraging a pre-shootout decision. At the Winter Olympics, each team played the overtime periods in the knockout round with five players instead of the usual six. The idea, carried over from the NHL, was to create more space for offense, for resolution, and it worked. One of the reasons that Canada’s victory over the United States in the gold-medal game was so terrific was that it ended with a goal — a real goal instead of some artificial construct.

Requiring soccer teams to play the first, say, 10-minute overtime period with 10 players each and the second period with nine would be a good way to start and, much better yet, finish. If that still does not resolve the conflict, let them play 8-on-8 and then 7-on-7, which would seem the minimum on a full-size field. Allow extra substitutions if there are health concerns about pushing players to their limits.