LogFAQs > #877477352

It is fair in the sense there is no specific offense and defense like american football or baseball, so each team essentially has equal chances, sure. It is not fair in that there is no other time they have OT or sudden death OT but for a playoff scenario(wc round of 16 on), so it takes the nature of the game and adds in an artificial element.

You can say OT in general does that, which is true to an extent, but they keep it as similar to the normal game as they can, such as no sudden death, and two halves albeit 15 minutes. They do PKs because after 120 minutes and likely all subs exhausted, they cant expect players to go much further without risk of injury. a PK is something that also happens in the normal game once in a while, so even there its parallel.

But soccer is like that, they want each stage of the game to be as equal as possible within whatever constraints they have.