There is no doubt that having a winner at the end of a match can be very exciting no matter what the game being played is all about.
However, sometimes it makes sense to just end a game in a tie instead of forcing both of the competing teams to keep pushing until one of them ends up being a winner.
Soccer is one of those sports that allow a match to end in a tie instead of forcing a game to end with a winner. There are many advantages when it comes to allowing ties, and I will be mentioning many of them in this article.
Why does soccer allow ties?
Well, that’s just how the game works. Ties are part of the soccer world. Most of the top domestic soccer leagues around the world have a points system that allows ties during a league match. For example, a single point is awarded for each of the competing teams if the game ends in a tie.
However, that doesn’t mean that we can’t question the reasons behind allowing or not allowing something in the beautiful game. Allowing ties in soccer has its advantages and here are some of them.
Advantages of allowing ties in soccer
1- Makes the duration of the game predictable.
If a soccer game can end in a draw, then you absolutely know how long it will take till the match ends. This can be helpful for the TV channels and for the audience because it’s always good to know how long something is going to take in general.
A soccer match usually takes around less than 2 hours to be completed. 90 minutes of match time, plus a halftime break of 15 minutes, plus a few minutes of injury time depending on how much time was wasted during the game.
You can dive more into how long a full soccer match is in this article.
It is extremely rare for a full soccer match to take more than 2 hours to be completed if a draw is allowed during the game. Keep in mind that there are games that do not allow a draw to happen, but we’ll talk about these later in this article.
So in simple words, match duration predictability is one of the main advantages of allowing a game to end in a tie in soccer.
2- Push soccer players to put more effort towards the end of the game.
If a game is heading towards a tie, and there are only a few minutes left till the game ends, then both of the competing teams will attempt their best to score a goal and steal a last minute victory from their opponents.
If the soccer rules force the game to keep going until a winner is decided, then the soccer players on the field might slow the game down (due to feeling tired) when it is about to end because they know that they have as much time as they need in order to win the game.
However, when soccer allows a tie to happen, the players will know that if they do not act fast to grab the victory, they won’t get it.
This will let the soccer players push themselves harder at the end of the game even if they are completely exhausted and even if they have completely lost their stamina.
3- Reward both of the competing teams.
As mentioned before, it can be very exciting to always have a match winner. However, sometimes both of the competing teams perform exceptionally well to the point that you wish both teams would win the game.
Well, why not just let both of them win points instead of forcing one of them to leave the match as a loser?
That is what ties are for in soccer. If both of the competing teams perform well,then just give them both some points and let them end the game in a tie without deciding a winner.
With that said, I conclude the list of the advantages of allowing ties in a soccer match.
However, keep in mind that not all games can end in a tie. For example, a world cup final must have a winner. You can learn more about what happens if a game must have a winner in this article.
The aggregate results of a 2-legged soccer match also can’t end in a tie. You can learn more about 2-legged matches in this article.
How common are ties in soccer?
Ties are extremely common in soccer. They are common even in the biggest soccer leagues around the world.
The following are the results of the 2019/2020 premier league competition (arguably the best domestic soccer league in the world).
If you sum up the number of draws that took place in the Premier League in 2019/2020, you’ll get the number 184. In other words, 24.2 % of the matches of the 2019/20 premier league season ended in a draw. That’s almost ¼ the of the matches.
This is not a small number at all. You can very easily conclude that ties in soccer are extremely common. The premier league is one of the biggest soccer leagues in the world, and yet one fourth of the games played in the premier league ended up in a tie in one of its seasons.
The main reason behind the high number of ties in soccer is that there aren’t a lot of goals scored during a soccer match. If there were more goals scored per soccer match, then the ties in soccer would be less common.
If you do not know what a soccer league is, you can learn more about them in this article.
SUMMARY
Ties are a huge part of the soccer game. As mentioned before, ties are extremely common in the biggest soccer leagues around the world.
There are many advantages of allowing a soccer game to end in a tie. Some of these advantages are having a fixed match duration, pushing the competing teams to their limits at the end of the game, and so on.