Sixteen Fifteen - A Record Breaking Penalty Shoot Out Between Preston North End And Fulham

Introduction

I am not sure how to start this. I have supported Preston North End all my life but they have never played in the Premiership, but in their first season they won the League without losing a match and the FA Cup without conceding a goal, including a 26-0 thrashing of Hyde United which still stands for the competition.

This season's Carabao Cup has been loaded in favour of Premiership Teams so when Preston were drawn with Fulham I was expecting a tight match, but the probable outcome in favour of the visitors. Often referees favour the bigger teams but last night's referee, Robert Madley, was exemplary, you never noticed him and he let the match flow as perfectly as possible.

Football is one of those games that could, in theory, be played non-stop for the allotted forty-five-minute half.

I have inluded YouTube highlights of the match and hopefully, everyone can watch that if they want, it does include the full penalty shoot-out.

The Penalties

There were two other ties decided by penalties before this, including Everton losing another lead and being defected by Southampton resulting in the cruel but funny meme from the fact that this season they have lost every lead they have had.

Anyway back to the point of this post.

No one wants a penalty shoot-out, while it is great for the Neutrals, it is nerve-wracking for the fans and teams, but it does happen.

In the Carabao Cup early stages drawn matches go straight to penalties, so there areno replays and no extra time, you are straight in there.

Preston had taken the lead through Ryan Ledson after thirty-five minutes, and Fulham equalised through Reiss Nelson after sixty-thee minutes, and while Fulham had seventy per cent possession and six shots on target to Preston's four they could not make their superiority count, and it is all about putting the ball in the back of the net, and so penalties loomed.

A penalty shoot-out consists of each team taking five penalties and whoever scores the most progresses. So teams can miss some and still win if the other team misses more.

If the teams are still tied after five penalties it goes to sudden death, but it seldom gets to that stage.

Last night Stoke beat Fleetwood 2-1 on penalties (apparently they were very poor) and Southampton beat Everton 6-5 on penalties after Ashley Young missed his sudden-death penalty.

For the penalty shoot-out, there are eleven players on the pitch and five are usually designated by volunteering or being chosen by the manager. If it gets to the sudden-death stage, the players taking the penalties are the ones who didn't volunteer, maybe they didn't want to take penalties.

Watching last night, during the shoot-out the Preston manager Paul Heckingbottom was enjoying himself with his staff, almost as though he knew what was going to happen.

I also wasn't nervous for some reason, possibly because it had been a good game and the penalties being taken were excellent with no sign of nerves from anyone on either team.

This is from the BBC Report

Championship side Preston North End stunned Premier League Fulham winning 16-15 on penalties in the longest shootout in Carabao Cup history.

Ryan Ledson scored the winning penalty in the third round after Timothy Castagne blazed over the bar for Fulham.

Fulham's Jorge Cuenca and Preston's Kaine Kesler Hayden had earlier seen their own misses cancelled out.

Preston's success meant the shootout eclipsed the previous record set by Derby County and Carlisle in 2016 when the Rams won 14-13 in a shootout.

"I've never been involved in a shootout like that," said Preston boss Paul Heckingbottom.

Conclusion

Everyone who saw it was amazed, and hopefully, you can see it in the video I have included.

So now we await the draw for the next round to see who our opponents are.