Shanghai SIPG and Suzhou Dongwu were tied at 1 after normal time yesterday in their China FA Cup Round of 16 game. And then things got wild.
The two teams proceeded to take 34 penalty kicks. Shanghai SIPG — who pays Oscar nearly $500,000 to jog around the midfield, kicking balls at opponents — missed twice in a row in the 5th and 6th rounds, but Suzhou couldn’t capitalize. Shanghai nailed 11 straight penalties afterwards, finally winning on a save in the 17th round.
That’s 15-14, if you’re scoring at home. That’s Shanghai has a nice summary of the proceedings:
So on it went: the goalkeepers both smashed theirs in; after 11 each it went back to the original penalty takers for another round each; an SIPG coach was booked for lurking behind the goal, as was Wu Lei for trying to interfere with proceedings.
The referee even had to tell the Suzhou ballboys off for swirling their raincoats in an attempt to put off the SIPG penalty takers (no doubt they just wanted it to be over with; it was probably now past their bedtime).
And that’s why the above video is 38 minutes long. (Here’s a condensed version.)
It wasn’t the longest penalty shootout in history though. As That’s tells us:
Was it the longest penalty shootout in history?
Alas no. According to Wikipedia, the current world record for the longest penalty shoot-out in a first class match is 48 penalties during the 2005 Namibian Cup when KK Palace beat Civics 17–16.
Shanghai SIPG plays Tianjin next in the quarterfinals.
